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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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« 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



STORIES 



OF 



THE BADGER STATE 



BY 



REUBEN GOLD THWAITES 




NEW YORK:- CINCINNATI:- CHICAGO 
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



XWO COPIES RECEIVED. 

Library of Congrai% 
Office of tbf 

MAY 1 6 MQ 

Regliter of Coryrl(ktlk 
SECOND COPY. jrOj / 



61707 



Copyright, 1900, by 
REUBEN GOLD THWAITES. 

STO. BADGER STA. 

w. p. I 



^^y 1. 



PREFACE 

The student of nature lives in a broader and more 
interesting world than does he who has not learned the 
story of the birds, the streaius, the fields, the woods, and 
the hedgerows. So, too, the student of local history 
finds his present interest in town, village, city, or State, 
growing with his knowledge of its past. 

In recognition of this fact, these true stories, selected 
from Wisconsin's history, have been written as a means 
to the cultivation of civic patriotism among the youth 
of our commonwealth. It is not the purpose of the 
book to present a continuous account of the develop- 
ment of the State ; for this, the author begs to refer to 
his larger work, "The Story of Wisconsin" (in the 
Story of the States Series). Rather is it desired to 
give selections from the interesting and often stirring 
incidents with which our history is so richly stored, in 
the hope that the reader may acquire a taste for delving 
more deeply into the annals of the Badger State. 

Wisconsin had belonged, in turn, to Spain, France, 
and England, before she became a portion of the United 
States. Her recorded history begins far back in the 
time of French ownership, in 1634. The century and 
a third of the French regime was a picturesque period, 

3 



upon whi^h the memory delights to dwell; with its 
many phases, several of the following chapters are con- 
cerned. The English regime was brief, but not without 
interest. In the long stretch of years which followed, 
before Wisconsin became an American State, many in- 
cidents happened which possess for us the flavor of 
romance. The formative period between 1848 and 1861 
was replete with striking events. In the War of Seces- 
sion, Wisconsin took a gallant and notable part. Since 
that great struggle, the State has made giant strides in 
industry, commerce, education, and culture ; but the 
present epoch of growth has not thus far yielded much 
material for picturesque treatment, perhaps because we 
are still too near to the events to see them in proper 
perspective. An attempt has been made to present 
chapters representative of all these periods, but natu- 
rally the earlier times have seemed best adapted to the 
purpose in hand. 

R. G. T. 



CONTENTS 



The Mound Builders 

Life and Manners of the Indians 

The Discovery of Wisconsin . 

Radisson and GroseilHers 

The Story of Johet and Marquette 

The Jesuit Missionaries . 

Some Notable Visitors to Early Wisconsin 

A Quarter of a Century of Warfare 

The Commerce of the Forest . 

In the Old French Days 

The Coming of the English . 

Wisconsin in the Revolutionary W; 

The Rule of Judge Reaume . 

The British capture Prairie du Chien 

The Story of the Wisconsin Lead Mines 

The Winnebago War 

The Black Hawk War . 

The Story of Chequamegon Bay 

Wisconsin Territory formed . 

Wisconsin becomes a State 

The Boundaries of Wisconsin 

Life in Pioneer Days 

5 



PAGE 

7 
14 
24 

33 

42 

51 
59 
70 
81 

87 
92 

97 
105 
no 
117 
125 

134 
146 

155 
159 
162 
171 



The Development of Roads 
The Phalanx at Ceresco . 
A Mormon King 
The Wisconsin Bourbon 
Slave Catching in Wisconsin 
The Story of a Famous Chief 
A Fight for the Governorship 
Our Foreign-born Citizens 
Swept by Fire 
Badgers in War Time 



PAGE 

177 
183 
190 
196 
202 
209 
216 
222 
230 
236 



Index 



247 



STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE 



>t0^c 



THE MOUND BUILDERS 

IN the basin of the Mississippi, particularly in that 
portion lying east of the great river, there are nu- 
merous mounds which were reared by human beings, 
apparently in very early times, before American his- 
tory begins. They are found most frequently upon the 
banks of lakes and rivers, and often upon the summits 
of high bluffs overlooking the country. No attempt 
has ever been made to count them, for they could be 
numbered by tens of thousands ; in the small county 
of Trempealeau, Wisconsin, for instance, over two 
thousand have been found by surveyors. Most of the 
mounds have been worn down, by hundreds of years of 
exposure to rain and frost, till they are but two or 
three feet in height ; a few, however, still retain so 
majestic an altitude as eighty or more feet. The coni- 
cal mounds are called by ethnologists tumuli. Other 
earthworks are long lines, or squares, or circles, and 
are probably fortifications ; some of the best examples 
of these are still to be traced at Aztalan, Wisconsin. 
In many places, especially in Ohio and Wisconsin, 
they have been so shaped as to resemble buffaloes, 

7 



8 



serpents, lizards, squirrels, or birds ; and some appar- 
ently were designed to represent clubs, bows, or spears 
— all these peculiarly shaped mounds being styled 
effigies. 

The mounds attracted the attention of some of the 
earliest white travelers in the Mississippi basin, and 
much was written about them in books published in 
Europe over a hundred years ago. Books are still 
being written about the mounds, but most of them are 
based on old and worn-out theories ; those pubhshed 
by the Ethnological Bureau, at Washington, are the 
latest and best. Many thousands of these earthworks 
have been opened, some by scientists, many more by 
curiosity seekers, and their contents have, for the most 
part, found their way into public museums. Many of 
the mounds have been measured with great accuracy, 
and pictures and descriptions of them are common. 

Until a few years ago, the opinion was quite gen- 
eral, even among historians and ethnologists, that the 
mounds were built by a race of people who lived in 
the Mississippi basin before the coming of the Indians, 
and that the mound builders were far superior to the 
Indians in civilization. Many thought that this prehis- 
toric race had been driven southward by the Indians, 
and that the Aztecs whom the Spaniards found in Mex- 
ico and Central America four hundred years ago were 
its descendants. We have in Wisconsin a reminder of 
the Aztec theory, in the name Aztalan, early applied 
to a notable group of earthworks in Jefferson county. 

There were many reasons why, in an earlier and 
more imperfect stage of our knowledge concerning 



Indians, this theory seemed plausible. It was argued 
that to build all these mounds required a vast deal of 
steady labor, which could have been performed only by 
a dense population, working under some strong central 
authority, perhaps in a condition of slavery ; that these 
people must have long resided in the same spot ; and 
must have been supported by regular crops of grain, 
vegetables, and fruit. It was shown that Indians, as 
we found them, lived in small bands, and did not abide 
long in one place ; that their system of government was 
a loose democracy ; that they were disinclined to per- 
sistent labor, and that they were hunters, not farmers. 
Further, it was contended that the mounds indicated a 
religious belief on the part of their builders, which was 
not the religion of the red men. The result of these 
arguments, to which was added a good deal of romantic 
fancy, was to rear in the pubUc mind a highly colored 
conception of a mythical race of Mound Builders, rival- 
ing in civilization the ancient Egyptians. 

But we are living in an age of scientific investigation ; 
scientific methods are being applied to every branch of 
study; history has had to be rewritten for us in the 
new light which is being thrown upon the path of 
human development. This is not the place to set forth 
in detail the steps by which knowledge has been slowly 
but surely reached, regarding the history of the once 
mysterious mounds. The work of research is not yet 
ended, for the study of ethnology is only in its infancy ; 
nevertheless, it is now well established that the Indians 
built the mounds, and we may feel reasonably certain 
for what purpose they used them. 



10 

Indian population was never dense in North Amer- 
ica. The best judges now agree that the entire native 
population consisted of not over two hundred thousand 
at the time when the Pilgrim Fathers came to Plym- 
outh. Of these, Wisconsin probably had but nine 
thousand, which, curiously enough, is about its present 
Indian population. But, before the first whites came, 
many of the American tribes were not such roamers 
as they afterward became ; they were inclined to gather 
into villages, and to raise large crops of Indian corn, 
melons, and pumpkins, the surplus of which they dried 
and stored for winter. We shall read, in another chap- 
ter, how the wiiite fur trader came to induce the Indian 
agriculturist to turn hunter, and thereby to become the 
wandering savage whom we know to-day. Concern- 
ing the argument that the modern Indian is too lazy 
to build mounds, it is sufficient to say that he was, 
when a planter, of necessity a better worker than when 
he had become a hunter ; also, that many of the state- 
ments we read about Indian laziness are the result of 
popular misunderstanding of the state of Indian soci- 
ety. It is now well known that the Indian was quite 
capable of building excellent fortifications; that the 
most complicated forms of mounds were not beyond 
his capacity ; and that, in general, he was in a more 
advanced stage of mental development than was gen- 
erally believed by old wTiters. Modern experiments, 
also, prove that the actual work of building a mound, 
wuth the aid of baskets to carry the earth, which was 
the method that they are known to have employed, 
was not so great as has been supposed. 



1 1 



It has been recently discovered, from documents of 
that period, that certain Indians were actually building 
mounds in our southern States as late as the Revolu- 
tionary War. In the north, the practice of mound 
building had gone or 
was going out of 
fashion about a hun- 
dred and twenty-five 
years before, that is, 
in the days when 
the French first came 
to Wisconsin. It is 
thought that some 
of our Wisconsin 
mounds may be a 
thousand years old ; 
while others are 
certainly not much 
over two hundred 
years of age, for 
skeletons have been 
found in some of them 
wearing silver ornaments which 
were made in Paris, and which 
bear dates as late as 1680. 

It is easy to imagine the uses to which the Wisconsin 
mounds were put by their Indian builders. We can the 
more readily reason this out, because we know, from 
books of travel published at the time, just what use 
the southern Indians were making of their mounds, in 
the period of the Revolutionary War. The small tumuli 




ai^S^: 



12 



were for the most part burial places for men of impor- 
tance, and were merely heaps of earth piled above the 
corpse, which was generally placed in a sitting posture ; 
he was surrounded with earthen pots containing food, 
which was to last him until his arrival at the happy hunt- 
ing ground, and with weapons of stone and copper, to 
enable him there to kill game or defend himself against 
his enemies. The larger tumuli were, no doubt, the 
commanding sites of council houses or of the huts of 
chiefs. Each Indian belonged, through his relation- 
ship with his mother's people, to some clan ; and each 
clan had its symbol or totem, such as the Bear, the 
Turtle, the Buffalo, etc. The Indians claimed that 
the clan had descended from some giant animal whose 
figure, or effigy, was thus honored. Many white people 
place their family symbol, or crest, or coat of arms on 
their letter paper, or on the panels of their carriage 
doors, or upon their silverware ; so Indians are fond 
of displaying their respective totems on their utensils, 
weapons, canoes, or wigwams. In the mound building 
days, they reared totems of earth, and probably dwelt 
on top of them. As in each village there were sev- 
eral clans, so there were numerous earth totems, many 
of them of great size. This, no doubt, is the origin 
of the so-called effigies. Add to these the mystic cir- 
cles of the medicine men, the fantastic serpents, and 
the fortifications necessary to defend the village from 
the approach of an enemy up some sloping bank or 
sharp-sided ravine, and you have the story of the 
mounds. An Indian village in those old mound build- 
ing days must have presented a picturesque appearance. 



13 

Just why the Indians stopped building mounds is 
not settled ; but it is noticeable that they were being 
built in various parts of the country about up to the time 
of the white man's entry. It may be that the coming 
of the stranger, with his different manners, hastened 
the decay of the custom ; or perhaps it had practically 
ceased about that time, as many another wave of cus- 
tom has swept over primitive peoples and left only 
traces behind. 

The mounds, with which the forefathers of our 
Indians dotted our land, remain to us as curious and 
instructive monuments of savage life in prehistoric 
times. No castles or grand cathedrals have come down 
to us, in America, to illustrate the story of the early 
ages of our own race ; but we have in the mounds 
mute, impressive relics of a still earlier life upon this 
soil, by our primitive predecessors. It should be con- 
sidered our duty, as well as our pleasure, to preserve 
them intact for the enlightenment of coming generations 
of our people. 



LIFE AND MANNERS OF THE INDIANS 

AT the time when white men first came to Wisconsin, 
there were found here several widely differing 
tribes of Indians, and these were often at war with one 
another. The Winnebagoes, an offshoot of the Sioux, 
occupied the valleys of the Wisconsin and the Fox, and 
the shores of Green Bay as far down as Sturgeon Bay. 
If the theory of the ethnologists be correct, that most of 
the Wisconsin mounds were built by the Winnebagoes, 
then at times they must have dwelt in nearly every cor- 
ner of the State. This is not unlikely, for the centers 
of Indian population were continually shifting, the red 
men being driven hither and thither by encroachments 
of enemies, religious fancies, or the never-ending search 
for food. We know only that when the whites found 
them, they were holding these two valleys, between Green 
Bay and Prairie du Chien. A broad-faced people, with 
flat noses, they were in personal appearance, habits, 
and morals the least attractive of all our tribes. Their 
cousins, the wild and dashing Sioux, were still using 
northwest Wisconsin as a hunting ground, and had 
permanent villages in Minnesota, and elsewhere to the 
west of the Mississippi River. The Chippewas (or 
Ojibways, as the name was originally spelled), the best 

14 



15 

of our Wisconsin aborigines, were scattered through 
the northern part of the State, as far south as the Black 
River, and perhaps as far eastward as the Wolf. East 
of them were the Menominees (Wild Rice Eaters), a 
comparatively gentle folk, who gathered great stores of 
grain from the broad fields of wild rice which flourishes 
in the bayous and marshy river bottoms of northeast 
Wisconsin. The Pottawattomies, with feminine cast of 
countenance, occupied the islands at the mouth of Green 
Bay, and the west shore of Lake Michigan, down into 
Illinois. The united Sacs (or Saukies) and Foxes 
(Outagamies) were also prominent tribes. When first 
seen by whites, the Sacs and Foxes were weak in num- 
bers, but, being a bold and warlike people, they soon 
grew to importance, and crowded the Winnebagoes out 
of the Fox valley and, later, out of much of the Wis- 
consin valley, becoming in their pride and strength 
bitter enemies of the French. 

Scattered elsewhere through the State were some 
smaller tribes : the Mascoutins (Fire Nation), chiefly in 
the neighborhood of the present city of Berlin ; the 
short-Hmbed Kickapoos, in the Kickapoo valley ; and, 
at various periods, bands of Hurons, Illinois, Miamis, 
and Ottawas, none of whom ever played a large part 
here. The Stockbridges, Oneidas, Brothertowns, and 
Munsees, now numerous in northeast Wisconsin, are 
remnants of New York and Massachusetts tribes who 
were removed hither by the general government in 
1822 and later. 

No two tribes spoke the same language. In Wiscon- 
sin, the Indians were divided by language into two 



great families, the Algonkin and the Dakotan. The 
Sioux and the Winnebagoes belonged, by their similar 
speech, to the Dakotan family, just as the English and 
the Germans belong to the great Teutonic family. All 
the others were of the Algonkin group, just as the 
French, the Spanish, and the ItaHans belong to what is 
called the Latin family, and speak languages which 
have the same origin. The Indian history 
ot Wisconsin is the more interesting, be- 
cause here these two great families 
or groups met, clashed, and inter- 
mingled. Despite the diversity of 
tongues, they were, with certain va- 
riations, much the same sort 
of people ; and for our pres- 
ent purpose, the description 
of one tribe will serve for 
the description of all. 
In size, Indians resemble 
Europeans ; some are shorter 
than the average white man, 
some taller ; the Kickapoos were 
among the short men. Indians 
have black eyes and coarse, black 
hair. Most of them wear no 
beard, but as the hairs appear, 
pluck them out with tweezers of 
wood or clam shell. They have thin hps, high 
cheek bones, broad faces, and prominent noses ; the 
Winnebago's nose is large, but much flattened. 

In primitive times, the summer dress of the men was 




17 

generally a short apron made of the well-tanned skin of 
a wild animal, the women being clothed in skins from 
neck to knees ; in winter, both sexes wrapped them- 
selves in large fur robes. In some parts of North 
America, especially in the south, where the Indians 
were more highly developed than those in the north, 
they wove rude cloths of thread spun from buffalo hair, 
or of sinews of animals killed in the chase. It is not 
supposed that there was much of this cloth made in 
Wisconsin. What specimens have been discovered in 
our mounds, no doubt were obtained from the native 
peddlers, who wandered far and wide carrying the 
peculiar products of several tribes, and exchanging 
them for other goods, or for wampum, the universal 
currency of the forest. Moccasins of deerskin were in 
general use ; also leggins, with the fur turned inward 
or outward according to the weather. Much of their 
clothing was stained red or black or yellow ; some was 
painted in stripes or lace work, and some was decorated 
with pictures of birds and beasts, or with scenes which 
they wished to commemorate. One old writer quaintly 
speaks of " a great skinne painted and drawen and 
pourtrayed that nothing lacked but life." Their dress 
was also ornamented by beads and porcupine quills; 
in the fringed borders of their leggins and robes were 
often fastened deer's hoofs, the spurs of wild turkeys, 
or the claws of bears or eagles, which rattled as their 
wearers walked along. Around their necks v/ere strings 
of beads, and their ears and noses were pierced for 
the hanging of various other ornaments. In their hair, 
the men tied eagle feathers, one for each scalp taken. 

STO. OF BADGER STA. — 2 




The ''war bonnet," worn by the leading warriors, 
was a headdress of skins and feathers, which 
trailed down _,^_ the back and often to the 
and was highly picturesque. 
Add to this, the general habit of 
tattooing, or, on ceremonial occa- 
sions, of fantastically, often hideously, 
painting the face and neck and breast 
in blue, black, and red, and one can 
well imagine that an Indian village, on 
a fete day, or at other times of popular 
excitement, presented a striking scene. 
Each tribe could be readily distin- 
guished from others, by the shape and material of its 
wigwams or huts. The Chippewas, for instance, lived 
in hemispherical huts, covered with great sheets of 
birch-bark ; the Winnebago hut was more of the shape 
of a sugar loaf, and was covered with mats of woven 
rushes ; the Sioux dwelt in cone-shaped huts {tepees), 
covered with skins, the poles sticking out at the top. 
These huts were foully kept, and all manner of camp 
diseases prevailed ; pulmonary complaints and rheuma- 
tism were particularly frequent, and both men and 
women looked old and haggard before they reached 
middle age. 

In the old mound building days, the huts of the village 
leaders or chiefs were no doubt built upon the tops of 
the mounds, while the common people lived on the 
lower level. On top of a very large, conspicuous mound 
was the council house, where important events were 
discussed and action taken. Every warrior, that is. 



every rnan who had taken the scalp of an enemy, was 
permitted to be heard around the council fire; but the 
talking was for the most part done by the privileged 
class of headmen, old men, wise men, and orators. 

The political organization of the Indians was weak. 
The villages were little democracies, where one warrior 
considered himself as good as another, except for the 
respect naturally due to the chiefs or headmen of the 
several clans, or to those who had the reputation of 
being wise and able. The sachem, or peace-chief, whose 
office was hereditary through connection with his moth- 
er's family, had but slight authority unless his natural 
gifts commanded respect. 

When war broke out, the fighting men ranged them- 
selves as volunteers under some popular leader, per- 
haps a regular chief, or perhaps only a common warrior. 
When the village council decided to do something, any 
man might, if he wished, refuse to obey. It 
was seldom that an entire tribe, consisting of 
several villages, united in an important under- 
taking; still more unusual was it, for several 
tribes to unite. This was, of course, a weak 
organization, such as a pure democracy is sure 
to be. The Indian lacked self-control and 
steadfastness of purpose, and the tribes and 
villages were jealous of one another; so they 
yielded before the whites, who better under- 
stood the value of union in the face of a com- 
mon foe. The formidable conspiracies of King 
Philip, Pontiac, and some others were the 
work of Indians of quite unusual ability in 




20 

the art of organization ; but the leaders could find few 
others equal to their skill, and the uprisings were short- 
lived. 

The Indian's strength as a fighter lay in his capacity 
for stratagem, in his ability to thread the tangled forest 
as silently and easily as the plain, and in his habit of 
making rapid, unexpected sallies for robbery and mur- 
der, and then gliding back into the dark and almost 
impenetrable forest. He soon tired of long military 
operations, and, when hard pressed, was apt to yield to 
the white men who were often inferior in numbers, but 
who soon learned to adopt the aborigine's skulking 
method of warfare. 

Lord of his own wigwam, and tyrannical over his 
squaws, the Indian was kind and hospitable to unsus- 
pected strangers, yet merciless to a captive. Neverthe- 
less, prisoners were often snatched from the stake, or 
the hands of a cruel captor, to be adopted into the family 
of the rescuer, taking the place of some one killed by 
the enemy. The red man was improvident, given to 
gambling, and, despite the popular notion, was a jolly, 
easy-going sort of fellow around his own fire; but in 
council, and when among strangers, he was dignified 
and reserved, too proud to exhibit curiosity or emotion. 
He indulged in a style of oratory which abounded in 
metaphors drawn from his observations of nature. He 
was superstitious, peopling the elements with good and 
bad spirits ; and was much influenced by the medicine 
men, who were half physicians and half priests, and 
who commanded long fastings, penances, and sacrifices, 
with curious dances, and various forms of necromancy. 



21 

The Indian made tools and implements which were 
well adapted to his purpose ; the boats which he fash- 
ioned of skins, of birch-bark, or of hollowed trunks of 
trees have not been surpassed. He was remarkably 
quick in learning the use of firearms, and soon equaled 
the best white hunters as a marksman. A rude sense 
of honor was developed within him ; he had a nice per- 
ception of what was proper to do ; he knew how to 
bend his own will to the force of custom, thus he over- 
came to some extent the natural evils of democracy. 
He understood the arts of politeness when he chose 
to practice them. He could plan admirably, and often 
displayed much skill in strategy ; his reasoning was 
good. He knew the value of form and color, as we 
can see in his rock-carvings, in his rude paintings, in 
the decorations on his leather, and in his often grace- 
ful body-markings. In short, he was less of a savage 
than we are in the habit of thinking him ; he was 
barbarous from choice, because he had a wild, un- 
trammeled nature and saw little in civilized ideas to 
attract him. This is why, with his polite manner, he 
always seemed to be yielding to missionary efforts, 
yet perhaps never became thoroughly converted to 
Christianity. 

When first discovered by white men, Wisconsin In- 
dians were using rude pottery of their own make. Their 
arrowheads and spearheads, axes, knives, and other 
tools and weapons were of copper obtained from 
Lake Superior mines, or of stone suitable for the 
purpose. They smoked tobacco in pipes wrought in 
curious shapes from a soft kind of stone found in 



22 




Minnesota, and ornaments and charms were also fre- 
quently made from this so-called " pipestone." Game 
they killed with arrows or sling-shots, and in war 
used these, as well as stone spears and hatchets and 

stone-weighted clubs. The bulk 
of their food they obtained by 
hunting, fishing, and cultivating 
the soil, although at times they 
were forced to resort to the usu- 
ally plentiful supply of fruits, 
nuts, and edible roots. Indian 
corn was the principal crop. 
Beans were sown in the same 
hills, while sometimes between 
the rows were planted several 
varieties of pumpkins, water-melons, and sunflowers. 
Tobacco and sweet potatoes were grown by some tribes, 
but not in Wisconsin. In our State, wild rice (or oats) 
furnished a good substitute for corn, and was similarly 
cooked. 

The whites wrought a serious change in the life and 
manners of the Indians. They introduced firearms 
among the savages, and induced them to become hunt- 
ers, and to wander far and wide for fur bearing animals, 
the pelts of which were exchanged for European cloths, 
glass beads, iron kettles, hatchets, spears, and guns and 
powder. Thus the Indian soon lost the old arts of mak- 
ing their own clothing from skins, kettles from clay, 
weapons from stone and copper, and wampum (beads 
used both for ornament and money) from clam shells. 
It did not take them lono: to discover that their labor 



23 

was more productive when they hunted, and purchased 
what they wanted from the white traders, than when 
they made their own rude implements and utensils and 
raised crops. But the result was bad, for thereby they 
ceased to be self-sustaining ; their very existence became 
dependent on the fur traders, who introduced among 
them many vices, not least of which was a love for the 
intoxicating liquors in which the traders dealt. 

The Indian, at best, was never a lovable creature. 
He was dirty, improvident, brutal ; he was, as compared 
with a European, mentally and morally but an unde- 
veloped man. He is to-day, as we find him upon the 
reservations, pretty much the same as when found by 
the French over two and a half centuries ago, except 
that to. his original vices he has added some of the 
worst vices of the white man. The story of the Indian 
is practically the story of the fur trade, and that is 
the story of Wisconsin before it became a Territory. 



THE DISCOVERY OF WISCONSIN 



IN the year 1608, the daring French explorer, Samuel 
de Champlain, founded a settlement on the steep 
cliff of Quebec, and thus laid the foundations for the 
great colony of New France. This colony, in the course 
of a century and a half, grew to em- 
brace all of what we now call Canada 
and the entire basin of the Mississippi 
River. 

New France grew slowly. This was 
largely owing to the opposition of the 
fierce Iroquois Indians of New York, 
whom Champlain had greatly angered. 




CHAMPLAIN 



Another reason was the changing moods 



of the Algonkin Indians of Canada and 
the Middle West ; and still another, the enormous diffi- 
culties of travel through the vast forests and along 
streams frequently strewn with rapids. Champlain was 
made governor of New France, and varied his duties 
by taking long and painful journeys into the wilder- 
ness, thus setting the fashion of extensive exploration. 
There were two very good reasons for encouraging 
explorers : in the first place, New France was then 
largely controlled by a company of merchants, called 

24 



25 

the Hundred Associates, who desired to push the fur 
trade far and wide among the savage tribes; in the 
second place, the French CathoUc missionary priests 
were anxious to reach the Indians, to convert them to 
the Christian rehgion. Thus it came about that, dur- 
ing the twenty-five years when the energetic and 
enterprising Champlain was governor, there was little 
talked or thought about in New France but explora- 
tion, the fur trade, and the missions to the Indians. 

In order to carry out his schemes for opening new 
fields to the traders and missionaries, Champlain found 
it necessary to train young men to this work. Only 
those were selected for the task who had a fair edu- 
cation, and were healthy, strong, well-formed, and brave. 
They were, often when mere boys, sent far up into 
the country to live among the Indian tribes, to be 
adopted by them, to learn their habits and languages, 
and to harden themselves to the rough life and rude diet 
of the dusky dwellers in the forest. It took several 
years of this practice, with patient suffering, for a youth 
to become an expert who could be trusted to undergo 
any hardship or daring task that might be asked of him. 
It was one of these forest-bred interpreters who became 
the first white discoverer of Wisconsin. 

In those early days of New France, most of its people 
were from the west and northwest provinces of France. 
The crews of the ships which engaged in the trade to 
New France were nearly all from the ports of Rouen, 
Honfleur, Fecamp, Cherbourg, Havre, Dieppe, and 
Caen ; in these north-coast cities lived the greater part 
of the Hundred Associates, and from their vicinity 



26 

came nearly all of the Jesuit missionaries and the young 
men who were trained as interpreters. 

Jean Nicolet was born in or near Cherbourg, and 
was the son of a mail carrier. He was about twenty 
years of age when, in 1618, he arrived in Quebec; 
''and forasmuch as," says an old Jesuit writer of that 
time, " his nature and excellent memory inspired good 
hopes of him, he was sent to winter with the Island 
Algonkins, in order to learn their language. He 
tarried with them two years, alone of the French, 
and always joined the Barbarians in their excursions 
and journeys, undergoing such fatigues as none but 
eyewitnesses can conceive ; he often passed seven or 
eight days without food, and once, full seven weeks with 
no other nourishment than a little bark from the trees." 
These "Island Algonkins" lived on Allumettes Island 
in the Ottawa River, nearly three hundred miles from 
Quebec ; their language was the principal one then used 
by the Indians in the country on the north bank of the 
St. Lawrence and in the great valley of the Ottawa. 

Although the life was so hard that few white men 
could endure it, Nicolet, like most of the other inter- 
preters, learned to enjoy it; and, passing from one 
tribe to another, in his search for new languages and 
experiences, he remained among his forest friends for 
eight or nine years. He had been with the Algonkins 
for three or four years when he went, at the head of 
four hundred of them, into the Iroquois country, and 
made a treaty of peace with this savage foe, whom the 
Algonkins always greatly feared. It is related that 
thence he went to dwell with the Nipissing Indians, liv- 



27 • 

ing about Lake Nipissing, "where he passed for one 
of that nation, taking part in the very frequent councils 
of those tribes, having his own separate cabin and 
household, and fishing and trading for himself." 

Possibly Nicolet might have been recalled from the 
woods before this, but, between 1629 and 1632, Can- 
ada was in the hands of the British ; and he re- 
mained among the Indians, inspiring them to hostility 
against the strangers. In 1632, when the country was 
released to France, Champlain and his fellow-officers 
returned to Quebec, and Nicolet was summoned thither, 
and was employed as clerk and interpreter by the 
Hundred Associates. 

Champlain was eager to resume his explorations. 
He had once been up the great Ottawa River, and 
thence had crossed over to Lake Huron, and had be- 
come keenly interested in what were then termed the 
"upper waters." Of Lakes Ontario and Erie he knew 
nothing, for the dreaded Iroquois had prevented the 
French from going that way ; and Lakes Superior and 
Michigan were, as yet, undiscovered by whites. Vague 
rumors of these unknown regions had been brought to 
Quebec by bands of strange savages who had found 
their way down to the French settlements in search 
of European goods in exchange for furs. 

Among the many queer stories brought by these 
fierce, painted barbarians was one which told of a 
certain "Tribe of the Sea" dwelling far away on 
the western banks of the "upper waters," a people 
who had come out of the West, no man knew whence. 
In those early days, Europeans still clung to the 



28 

notion which Columbus had always held, that 
America was but an eastern projection of Asia. This 
is the reason that our savages were called Indians, 
for the discoverers of America thought they had 
merely reache^l an outlying portion of India ; they 
had no idea that this was a great and new continent. 
Governor Champlain, and after him Governor Fron- 
tenac, and the great explorer La Salle, all supposed 
that they could reach India and China, already known 
to travelers to the east, by persistently going westward. 
When, therefore, Champlain heard of these strange 
Men of the Sea, he at once declared they must be the 
long-sought Chinese. He engaged Nicolet, in whom 
he had great confidence, to go out and find them, wher- 
ever they were, make a treaty of peace with them, and 
secure their trade. 

Upon the first day of July, 1634, Nicolet left Quebec, 
a passenger in the second of two fleets of canoes con- 
taining Indians from the Ottawa valley, who had come 
down to the white settlements to trade. Among his 
fellow passengers were three adventurous Jesuit mis- 
sionaries, who were on their way to the country of the 
Huron tribe, east of Lake Huron. Leaving the priests 
at Allumettes Island, he continued up the Ottawa, 
then crossed over to Lake Nipissing, visited old friends 
among the Indians there, and descended French Creek, 
which flows from Lake Nipissing into Georgian Bay, a 
northeastern arm of Lake Huron. On the shores of 
the great lake, he engaged seven Hurons to paddle 
his long birch-bark canoe and guide him to the mysteri- 
ous " Tribe of the Sea." 



29 

Slowly they felt their way along the northern shores 
of Lake Huron, where the pine forests sweep majes- 
tically down to the water's edge, or crown the bold 
cliffs, while southward the green waters of the inland 
sea stretch away to the horizon. Storms too severe 
for their frail craft frequently detained them on the 
shore, and daily they sought food in the forest. The 
savage crew, tiring of exertion, and overcome by super- 
stitious fears, would fain have abandoned the voyage ; 
but the strong, energetic master bore down all opposi- 
tion. At last they reached the outlet of Lake Superior, 
the forest-girt Strait of St. Mary, and paddled up as 
far as the falls, the Sault Ste. Marie, as it came to be 
called by the Jesuit missionaries. Here there was a 
large village of Algonkins, where the explorer tarried, 
refreshing his crew and gathering information concern- 
ing the " Tribe of the Sea." The explorers do not 
appear to have visited Lake Superior; but, bolder 
than before, they set forth to the southwest, and pass- 
ing gayly through the island-dotted Straits of Mack- 
inac, now one of the greatest of the world's highways, 
were soon upon the broad waters of Lake Michigan, 
of which Nicolet was probably the first white dis- 
coverer. 

Clinging still to the northern shore, camping in the 
dense woods at night or when threatened by storm, 
Nicolet rounded far-stretching Point Detour and landed 
upon the shores of Bay de Noquet, a northern arm of 
Green Bay. Another Algonkin tribe dwelt here, with 
whom the persistent explorer smoked the pipe of peace, 
and they gave him further news of the people he 



30 

sought. Next he stopped at the mouth of the Menom- 
inee River, now the northeast boundary between Wis- 
consin and Michigan, where the Menominee tribe lived. 
Another council was held, more tobacco was smoked, 
and one of Nicolet's Huron companions was sent for- 
ward to notify the Winnebagoes at the mouth of the 
Fox River that the great white chief was approach- 
ing; for the uncouth Winnebagoes were the far-famed 
''Tribe of the Sea" whom Nicolet had traveled so far 
to find. 

The manner of their obtaining this name, which had 
so misled Champlain, is curious. The word was origi- 
nally •*' ouinepeg," or ** ouinepego," and both Winnipeg 
and Winnebago are derived from it. Now *' ouinepeg " 
was an Algonkin term meaning " men of (or from) the 
fetid (or bad-smelling) water." Possibly the tribe, far 
back in their history, once dwelt by a strong-smelling 
sulphur spring. The French, in their eagerness to find 
China, fancied that the fetid water must necessarily be 
salt water, hence the Western Ocean or "China Sea;" 
that is why they called the Winnebagoes the *' Tribe 
of the Sea," and jumped at the conclusion that they 
were Chinese. 

By this time, Nicolet had his doubts about meeting 
Chinese at Green Bay. As, however, he had brought 
with him " a grand robe of China damask, all strewn 
with flowers, and birds of many colors," such as 
Chinese mandarins are supposed to wear, he put it 
on ; and when he landed on the shore of Fox River, 
where is now the city of Green Bay, strode forward 
into the grouj) of waiting, skin-clad savages, discharg- 



31 

ing the pistols which he held in either hand. Women 
and children fled in terror to the wigwams ; and the 
warriors fell down and worshiped this Manitou (or 
spirit) who carried with him thunder and lightning. 

" The news of his coming," says the old Jesuit chron- 
icler, " quickly spread to the places round about, and 
there assembled four or five thousand men. Each of 



the Chief men made a feast for him, and at one of 
these banquets they served at least six-score Beavers." 
There was a great deal of oratory at these feasts, with 
the exchange of belts of wampum, and the smoking 
of pipes of peace, and no end of assurances on the 
part of the red men that they were glad to become the 
friends of New France and to keep the peace with 
the great French father at Paris. 



32 

Leaving his new friends at Green Bay, the explorer 
ascended the Fox River as far as the Mascoutins, who 
had a village upon a prairie ridge, near where Berlin 
now lies. He made a similar treaty with this people, 
and learned of the Wisconsin River which flows into 
the Mississippi, but did not go to seek it. He then 
walked overland to the tribe of the Illinois, probably 
returning to Quebec, in 1635, by way of Lake Michi- 
gan. Nicolet had proceeded over nearly two thousand 
five hundred miles of lake, river, forest, and prairie; 
had been subjected to a thousand dangers from man 
and beast, as well as from fierce rapids and storm- 
tossed waters ; had made treaties with several here- 
tofore unknown tribes, and had widely extended the 
boundaries of New France. 

For various reasons, it was nearly thirty years before 
another visit was made by white men to Wisconsin. 
Nicolet himself soon settled down at the new town of 
Three Rivers, on the- shores of the St. Lawrence, be- 
tween Quebec and Montreal, as the agent and inter- 
preter there of the great fur trade company. He was 
a very useful man both to the company and to the 
missionaries ; for he had great influence over the 
Indians, who loved him sincerely, and he always ex- 
ercised this influence for the good of the colony and of 
religion. He was drowned in the month of October, 
1642, while on his way to release a poor savage pris- 
oner who was being maltreated by Indians in the neigh- 
borhood. 



RADISSON AND GROSEILLIERS 

IN the preceding chapter, the story was told how, 
in the year 1634, only fourteen years after the 
Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, Jean Nicolet was 
sent by Governor Champlain, of Quebec, all the way 
out to Wisconsin, to make friends with our Indians, 
and to induce them to trade at the French villages 
on the lower St. Lawrence River. Whether any of 
them did, as a result of this visit, go down to see the 
palefaces at Three Rivers or Quebec, and carry furs 
to exchange for European beads, hatchets, guns, and 
iron kettles, we do not know ; there is no record of their 
having done so, neither are we aware that any white 
man soon followed Nicolet to Wisconsin. 

Fur traders were in the habit of wandering far into 
the woods, and meeting strange tribes of Indians; some- 
times they would not return to Quebec until after years 
of absence, and then would bring with them many 
canoe-loads of skins. The fur trade was under the 
control of the Company of the Hundred Associates. 
The laws of New France declared that there could be 
no traffic with the Indians, except what this great com- 
pany approved; for they had bought from the king of 
France the right to do all the trading and make all 

STO. OF BADGER STA. — 3 ^^ 



34 

the profits, and New France really existed only to make 
money for these rich Associates. The fur trade laws 
provided severe punishments for those violating them ; 
nevertheless, although the population was small, and 
everybody knew everybody else in the whole country, 
there were many brave, daring men who traveled through 
the deep forests, traded with the Indians on their own 
account, and paid no license fees to the Associates. 
These men, whom an oppressive monopoly could not 
keep down, were the most venturesome explorers in all 
this vast region ; they were known as coitreiirs des hois, 
or "wood rangers." La Salle, Duluth, Perrot, and 
many other early Western explorers, were, at times in 
their career, conrcnrs des bois. 

Now, as a coiireiir de bois was an outlaw, because 
he wandered and traded without a license, naturally he 
was not in the habit of telling where he had been or 
what he had seen ; then again, though brave men, few 
of these outlaws were educated, hence they seldom 
wrote journals of their travels. For these reasons, 
we are often obliged to depend on chance references 
to them, in the writings of others, and to patch up our 
evidence as to their movements, out of many stray 
fragments of information. 

So far as we at present know, there were no white 
men in Wisconsin during the twenty years following 
the coming of Nicolet. It is uncertain when the next 
white men came upon our soil, but there is good reason 
to believe that it was in the autumn of 1654. These 
men were Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Medard Chouart 
des Groseilliers. Like so many others in New France, 



35 

they were from the northern part of old France, and 
came to Canada while yet lads, Groseilliers in 1641, 
and Radisson ten years later. In 1653, Groseilliers 
married a sister of Radisson, and after that the two 
men became inseparable companions in their long and 
romantic wanderings. 

They experienced a number of thrilling adventures 
with Indians, both as traders to the forest camps of 
savages friendly to New France, and as prisoners in 
the hands of the French-hating Iroquois of New York. 
Nevertheless they had grown accustomed to the hard, 
perilous life of the wilderness, and were thoroughly in 
love with it. It was, as near as we can ascertain, early 
in the month of August, 1654, when these two adven- 
turers started out " to discover the great lakes that they 
heard the wqld men speak of." They followed, most 
of the way, in the footsteps of Nicolet, up the Ottawa 
River, and by the way of Lake Nipissing and French 
River to Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. This had now 
become a familiar route to the fur traders and Jesuit 
missionaries ; but of the country west of the eastern 
shore of Lake Huron scarcely anything was yet known, 
except what vague and often fanciful reports of it 
were brought by the savages. 

Like Nicolet, our two adventurous explorers traveled 
by canoes, with Indians to do the paddling. Passing 
between the Manitouhn Islands, in the northern waters 
of Lake Huron, they visited and traded with the Huron 
Indians there, thence proceeded through the Straits of 
Mackinac, and across to the peninsula of Door county, 
which separates Green Bay from Lake Michigan. Here 



36 



they spent the winter with the Pottawattomies ; they held 
great feasts with them, at which dogs and beavers, boiled 
in kettles into a sort of thick soup, were the greatest deli- 
cacies ; they smoked pipes of peace with them, at wordy 
councils which often lasted through several days ; they 
hunted and fished with them, in a spirit of good fellow- 
v^ V, ship ; and, in general, they shared 
the fortunes of their forest 
friends, whether feasting 







or starving, after the 
manner of all these 
early French explor- 
ers and fur traders. 
In the curious jour- 
nal afterward written 
in wretched but pic- 
^£> llf\,// turesque English by 



" We weare every 
where much made of ; 
neither wanted vict- 
ualls, for all the dif- 
ferent nations that we 
mett conducted us & 
furnished us w**" all necessaries." 

Springtime (1655) came at last, and the two traders 
proceeded merrily up the Fox River, still in the wake 
of Nicolet, past the sites of the present cities of Green 
Bay, De Fere, Kaukauna, Appleton, Neenah, and Me- 
nasha. They frequently had to carry their boats around 
the rapids and waterfalls, but after passing Doty's Island 




37 

they had a smooth highway. PaddUng through Lake 
Winnebago, and past the site of Oshkosh, then an 
Indian village, they pushed on through the winding 
reaches of the Upper Fox, and at last came to a broad 
prairie near Berlin, whereon was stationed the village 
of the Mascoutins, or Fire Nation. 

The Mascoutins treated the strangers, as they had 
Nicolet, with great kindness. With this village as 
headquarters, the explorers made frequent expeditions, 
" anxious to be knowne with the remotest people." 
Radisson quaintly writes, " We ware 4 moneths in our 
voyage without doeing any thing but goe from river 
to river." The explorers cared little, we may suppose, 
except to have a good time and make a profitable 
trade with the Indians ; they do not appear to have 
made any map. Writing about their travels, many 
years after, Radisson says, in one place, that they went 
into a " great river " which flowed southward, and jour- 
neyed to a land of continual warmth, finer than Italy, 
where he heard the Indians describe certain white men 
living to the south, who might be Spaniards. It is 
supposed by many historians that Radisson meant that 
he was on the Mississippi ; if this supposition be true, 
then the two explorers undoubtedly found the great 
river by going up the Fox from the Mascoutin vil- 
lage, carrying their canoe over the mile and a half of 
intervening marsh at Portage, and gliding down the 
Wisconsin to its junction with the Mississippi at Prairie 
du Chien. This is important, for the credit of discover- 
ing the Upper Mississippi is usually given to Louis 
Joliet and Father Marquette, who took this very course 



38 

in 1673, eighteen years later. But the whole question 
of what "great river" Radisson meant to describe is 
so involved in doubt, that very likely we shall never 
know the truth about it. 

Leaving their Mascoutin friends at last, apparently 
in the autumn of 1655, the two adventurers returned 
down the Fox River to Green Bay ; thence on to the 
large villages of Indians which clustered around the 
Sault Ste. Marie. Received there, as elsewhere, with 
much feasting and good will, Radisson and Groseilliers 
conducted trade with their hosts, and explored a long 
stretch of the southern coast of Lake Superior, but do 
not appear to have ventured so far as the Pictured 
Rocks. They also made long expeditions into the 
country, on snowshoes, to visit and trade with other 
tribes in the Michigan Peninsula and northern Wis- 
consin, and even as far off as Hudson Bay, at one 
time being accompanied by a hundred and fifty Indian 
hunters. 

In this wild fashion they spent the winter of 1655-56, 
and finally reached Quebec in August, 1656. They had 
been absent from home for two years, and had ex- 
perienced many singular adventures. It happened that 
during their absence the Iroquois had succeeded in 
keeping the Hurons and other friendly Indians from 
visiting Quebec, so that the fur trade, upon which New 
France depended, was now quite ruined ; for this reason 
the arrival of Radisson and Groseilliers, with a great 
store of furs from far-away Wisconsin and Lake 
Superior, was hailed as a joyful event, and, despite 
their having departed without a license, they were made 



39 







welcome at Quebec, the cannons being fired and 
the people flocking on the beach to meet them 

Men who love adventure cannot ^ 

be kept out of it long, what- 
ever the risk. Three )ears 
later, in the summer of 
1659, Radisson and 
Groseilliers again 
set off for Lake 
Superior, up the 
old Ottawa and 
Georgian Ray 
routes. This time 
they were spe- 
cially bidden by 
the king's offi- 
cers at Quebec 
not to go, so that _ 
they were obliged to 

slip off secretly, and _ ^_ _ ____ 

join a fleet of Indian _~ 

canoes returning home after the 
annual trade at the French settlements. 

At Sault Ste. Marie they spent a short time with their 
savage friends, and then paddled westward, along the 
southern shore of Lake Superior. In their company 
were several Huron and Ottawa Indians, who had 
recently been compelled to flee to Wisconsin because 
of Iroquois raids, which now extended as far west as 
Michigan. The travelers were obliged to carry their 
boats across Keweenaw Point, and at last found their 




40 

way to Chequamegon Bay, a noble sheet of water, 
hemmed in by the beautiful Apostle Islands, and to-day 
a popular summer resort. 

Not far to the west of where Ashland now lies, 
somewhere near Whittlesey's Creek, they built for 
themselves a rude hut, or fort, of logs. The place was 
a small point of land jutting out into the water, a 
triangle, Radisson describes it, with water on two sides 
and land at the base. The land side of the triangle was 
guarded with a pahsade of pointed stakes, and to pre- 
vent surprises by night, for Indians were always prowl- 
ing about looking for plunder, the traders surrounded 
their house with boughs of trees piled one upon the 
other, intertwined with a long cord hung with little bells. 

After staying at their fort for a few weeks, they 
managed to cacJie (secretly bury) the greater part of 
their goods ; and then set out on a hunt with their 
Huron neighbors upon the headwaters of the Chippewa 
River. Unusually severe weather set in, and a famine 
ensued, for there was no game to kill, and the snow 
was so deep that they could hardly travel. 

In the following spring (1660) the Frenchmen went 
with their Huron s on a long search for provisions, get- 
ting as far west as the Sioux camps in northern Min- 
nesota. Then they returned to Chequamegon Bay, 
where they built another little fort, and from which 
they visited some Indians on the northwest shore of 
Lake Superior. In August they returned home, again 
in a fleet of Huron canoes going down to Montreal to 
trade. But this time the offlcers of the colony pun- 
ished them for being coiireurs dcs bois, and confiscated 



41 

most of their valuable furs, which meant the loss of 
nearly all the property they possessed. 

Angered at this treatment, GroseiUiers went to Paris 
to seek justice from the king ; but, obtaining none, 
he and Radisson offered their services to the English, 
whom they told of Hudson Bay and its great fur- 
trading possibilities. It took several years, however, 
for negotiations to be completed ; and it was while in 
London that Radisson, for the information of the 
English king, wrote his now famous journal of ex- 
plorations in the Lake Superior country. Finally, 
after some unfortunate voyages, our explorers, in 1669, 
reached Hudson Bay in an English ship ; and, as a 
result, there was formed in England the great Hud- 
son Bay Company, which from that day to this has 
controlled the rich fur trade of those northern waters. 

In later years (1678), we find Radisson and Groseil- 
liers, who had been pardoned by Louis XIV., king of 
France, for their desertion to the English, back again 
in Paris. But after a time, suspicions as to their loy- 
alty spread abroad, and they again joined the English, 
to whom they were useful in attracting Indian trade 
away from the French to the Hudson Bay Company. 
They died at last, in London, considered by the French 
as traitors to their own country. They wdll, however, 
live in history as daring explorers, who opened to 
the fur trade the country now known as Wisconsin, 
the waters of Lake Superior, and the vast region of 
Hudson Bay. 



THE STORY OF JOLIET AND MARQUETTE 

IN history there are two ** discoveries of the Missis- 
sippi " ; the lower waters were discovered by the 
Spanish explorer, De Soto (April, 1541); and the upper 
waters, by Frenchmen from Canada or New France. 
Nothing came of De Soto's discovery for over a hun- 
dred years, for the Spaniards had no love for ex- 
ploration that gave no promise of mines of precious 
metals, and it is to the French that we give chief credit 
for finding the Mississippi; for their discovery imme- 
diately led the way to a general knowledge of the 
geography and the savages of the great valley, and 
to settlements there by whites. 

It is seldom safe to say who was the first man to 
discover anything, be it in geography, in science, or 
in the arts ; generally, we can tell only who it was 
that made the first record of the discovery. Now 
it is quite possible that Frenchmen may have wan- 
dered into the Upper Mississippi valley before Ra- 
disson and Groseilliers appeared in Wisconsin (1654); 
but, if they did, we do not know of it. It is still 
a matter of dispute whether the "great river" de- 
scribed in Radisson's journal was the Mississippi; 
some writers think that it was, and that to him and to 

42 



43 

Groseilliers belongs the honor of the first-recorded dis- 
covery. Then, again, there are some who think that 
in 1670 the famous fur trader La Salle was upon the 
Mississippi ; but that is a mere guess, and honors 
cannot be awarded upon guesswork. We do know, 
however, that in 1673 Joliet and Marquette set out 
for the very purpose of finding the Mississippi, and 
succeeded ; and that upon their return they wrote 
reports of their trip and made maps of the country. 
Having thus opened the door, as it were, white men 
w^ere thereafter frequent travelers on the broad water- 
way. Hence it is idle to discuss possible previous 
visits ; to Joliet and Marquette are due the credit of 
regular, premeditated discovery. 

Louis Joliet, who led this celebrated expedition, was 
at the time but twenty-eight years old. He was born 
in Quebec, had been educated at the Jesuit college 
there, and early in life became a fur trader. He 
learned several Indian languages, and made numerous 
long journeys into the wilderness, and, like Jean Nico- 
let before him, was regarded by the officers and the 
missionaries at Quebec as a man well fitted for the 
Ufe of an explorer. In 1671 he went with Saint 
Lusson, one of the officials of New France, to Sault 
Ste. Marie. St. Lusson made peace with the Indians 
of the Northwest, and, in the name of the king of 
France, took possession of all the country bordering 
on the upper Great Lakes. 

Upon returning to Quebec, Joliet met the famous 
Count Frontenac, but recently arrived from Paris, 
where he had been appointed as governor of New 



44 




t ^ 4. 












France. Frontenac was curious to know more about 
the Mississippi River, especially whether it flowed into 
the Pacific Ocean, or the " Southern Sea " as it was then 
called in Europe. In looking about for a man to head 
an expedition to the great river, he could hear of no 
one better prepared for such service than Joliet. 

In those early days, no exploring 
party was complete without a priest ; 
tor the conversion of the savages to 
Christianity was quite as impor- 
tant, in the eyes of the king, as 
J W^,.. the development 
of the fur trade. 
Father Jacques 
Marquette, then 
thirty-six years of 
age, was the Jesuit 
missionary at Point 
St. Ignace, on the 
Straits of Mackinac. 
When Joliet reached that 
outpost, after a long and 
weary canoe voyage up the now 
r^^ r ^ familiar Ottawa River and Georgian 

~^ Bay route, he delivered orders to Mar- 

quette to join his party. Joliet was a favorite with his 
old instructors, the Jesuits, so that the two young men 
were well pleased with being united upon this project, 
Joliet to attend to the worldly affairs of the expedi- 
tion, and Marquette to the religious. Both of them 
had had long training in the hard Hfe of the wilder- 




45 

ness, and understood Indian character and habits as 
well as any men in New France. 

It was upon the 17th of May, 1673, that the two 
explorers, in high spirits, set forth from Marquette's 
little mission at Point Ignace. Five French boatmen 
paddled their two canoes, and did most of the heavy 
work of the journey, carrying the boats and cargoes 
around rapids, or along portage trails from one river to 
another. Marquette says in his journal : " Our joy at 
being chosen for this expedition roused our courage, 
and sweetened the labor of paddling from morning to 
night." 

The course they took was, no doubt, that followed 
through nearly two hundred years thereafter by per- 
sons journeying in canoes from Mackinac to Green 
Bay. They paddled along the northern shores of Lake 
Michigan and Green Bay, until they could cross over 
through the stormy water known as " Death's Door,'" 
to the islands beyond the Door county peninsula ; and 
then crept down the east shore of Green Bay, under 
the lee of the high banks. 

They seem to have made good time, for on the 7th of 
June they reached the village of the Mascoutins, on 
the south shore of Fox River, near where Berlin now 
is, the same village, it will be remembered, where Nico- 
let, Radisson, and AUouez had already been enter- 
tained. We do not know upon what day our two 
explorers had reached De Pere, where the Jesuit 
mission was established, but they probably stayed 
among their friends there for some days, before going 
up the Fox. 



46 

In his journal, the good missionary described nearly 
everything he saw, with much detail. The Menominee 
Indians interested him greatly ; he calls them " the 
People of the Wild Oats," and tells how they gather 
the grain of these wild oats (or wild rice), by " shaking 
the ears, on their right and left, into the canoe as they 
advance " through the swamps. Then they take the 
grain to the land, strip it of much of the chaff, and 
" dry it in the smoke on a wooden lattice, under which 
they keep up a small fire for several days." **When 
the oats are well dried, they put them in a skin of 
the form of a bag, which is then forced into a hole 
made on purpose in the ground ; then they tread it 
out, so long and so well, that the grain being freed 
from the chaff is easily winnowed ; after which they 
reduce it to meal." There are still to be seen, on the 
shores of Lake Koshkonong, and several other Wis- 
consin lakes and rivers, the shallow, bowl-like holes 
used by the Indians in threshing this grain, as described 
by Marquette two and a quarter centuries ago. 

The Mascoutin village also claims much attention in 
the missionary's diary. The Mascoutins themselves 
are rude, he says ; so also are the Kickapoos, many of 
whom live with them. At this village are also many 
Miami Indians, who had fled from their homes in 
Indiana and Ohio, through fear of the fierce Iroquois 
of New York. These Miamis are, Marquette tells 
us, superior to the Wisconsin Indians, being *' more 
civil, liberal, and better made ; they wear two long 
earlocks, which give them a good appearance," and 
are brave, docile, and devout, Hstening carefully to the 



47 

missionaries who have visited them. The Father also 
describes the site of the village : " I felt no little 
pleasure in beholding the position of this town ; the 
view is beautiful and very picturesque, for from the 
eminence on which it is perched, the eye discovers on 
every side prairies spreading away beyond its reach, 
interspersed with thickets or groves of lofty trees. 
The soil is very good, producing much corn ; the 
Indians gather also quantities of plums and grapes, 
from which good wine could be made, if they chose." 
'' As bark for cabins is rare in this country, they use 
rushes, which serve them for walls and roof, but which 
are no great shelter against the wind, and still less 
against the rain when it falls in torrents. The advan- 
tage of this kind of cabins is that they can roll 
them up, and carry them easily where they like in 
hunting-time." 

Above the Mascoutin village, the Fox begins to 
narrow, being hemmed in, and often choked, by broad 
swamps of reeds and wild oats. The canoe traveler 
who does not know the channel, is sometimes in danger 
of missing it, and getting entangled in the maze of 
bayous. Two Miami guides were therefore obtained 
from their hosts, and on the loth of June the travelers 
set off for the southwest, " in the sight of a great 
crowd, who could not wonder enough to see seven 
Frenchmen alone in two canoes, dare to undertake so 
strange and so hazardous an expedition." The guides 
safely conducted them to the place where is now sit- 
uated the city of Portage, helped them over the swampy 
plain of a mile and a half in width, and, after seeing 



48 

them embarked upon the broad waters of the Wis- 
consin River, left them " alone in an unknown country, 
in the hands of Providence." 

The broad valley of the Wisconsin presents a far 
different appearance from that of the peacefully flow- 
ing Upper Fox, with its outlying marshes of reeds, and 
its numerous lakes. The Wisconsin, or Meskousing, 
as Marquette writes it, is flanked by ranges of bold, 
heavily wooded bluffs, which are furrowed with roman- 
tic ravines, while the channel is, at low water, studded 
with islands and sand bars, and in times of flood 
spreads to a great width. Marquette himself describes 
it thus : " It is very broad, with a sandy bottom, 
forming many shallows, which render navigation very 
difficult. ' It is full of vine-clad islets. On the banks 
appear fertile lands diversified with wood, prairie, and 
hill. Here you find oaks, walnut, whitewood, and an- 
other kind of tree with branches armed with long 
thorns. We saw no small game or fish, but deer and 
moose in considerable numbers." About ninety miles 
below Portage, they thought that they discovered an 
iron mine. 

At last, on the 17th of June, they swiftly glided 
through the picturesque delta of the Wisconsin, near 
Prairie du Chien, and found themselves upon the 
Mississippi, grateful that after so long and tiresome a 
journey they had found the object of their search. 
Joliet's instructions were, however, to ascertain whether 
the great stream flowed into the "Southern Sea"; so 
they journeyed as far down as the mouth of the 
Arkansas. There they gathered information from 



49 

the Indians which led them to believe that the river 
emptied into the Gulf of Mexico ; thus the old riddle 
of the supposed waterway through the heart of the 
North American continent was left unsolved. 

In returning, Joliet and Marquette came up the Illi- 
nois River, and reached Lake Michigan by portaging 
over to the Chicago River. They were back at the 
Jesuit mission at De Pere, in September. Marquette 
having fallen ill, Joliet was obliged to return to Quebec 
alone, leaving the missionary to spend the winter with 
his Wisconsin friends. When almost within sight of 
the French settlement at Montreal, at the mouth oi the 
Ottawa River, poor Joliet lost all his papers in the dan- 
gerous Lachine rapids, and could make only a verbal 
report to the government. He later prepared a map 
of his route, with great care, and forwarded that to 
France ; it is one of the best maps of the interior parts 
of North America made in the seventeenth century. 
Joliet, as the leader of the expedition, had hoped to 
receive, either in office or lands, substantial rewards 
for his great discoveries ; but there were now new 
officials at Quebec, with whom he had little influence, 
and the recompense of this brave spirit was small. 
Others reaped what advantages there were in the open- 
ing of the Mississippi valley to the fur trade. 

On the other hand, the unworldly priest who was his 
friend and companion, and who neither desired nor 
needed special recognition for what he had done, has, 
all unconsciously, won most of the glory of this bril- 
liant enterprise. Under the rules of the Jesuit order, 
each missionary in New France was obliged to forward 

STO. OF BADGER STA. — 4 



50 



to his superior at Quebec, once each year, a written 
journal of his doings. Marquette prepared his report 
at leisure during the winter, while at De Pere, and in 
the spring sent it down to Quebec, by an Indian who 
was going thither to trade with the whites. Accom- 
panying it was a crudely drawn but fairly accurate map 
of the Mississippi basin. The journal and map arrived 
safely, but for some reason nei- 
ther was then printed ; indeed, 
they remained almost unknown 
to the world for a hundred and 
seventy-nine years, being at last 
published in 1852. Marquette 
never learned the fate of either 
Joliet's elaborate records or his 
own simple story of the expe- 
dition, for he died in May, 1675, 
on the eastern shore of Lake 
Michigan, worn out by disease 
and by excessive labors in be- 
half of the Indians. 

* By the time Marquette's jour- 
nal was finally published, Joliet 
IfflilliiiliiM^^^^^^ h^fj been well-nigh forgotten ; 

and to Marquette, because his journal was the only one 
printed, is given the chief credit in nearly every Amer- 
ican history. The legislature of Wisconsin has placed 
a beautiful marble statue of the gentle Marquette, as 
the discoverer of the Mississippi, in the capitol in 
Washington ; whereas the name of his sturdy chief is 
perpetuated only in the principal prison city of Illinois. 




THE JESUIT MISSIONARIES 

IN planting settlements in Canada (or New France, 
as it was then called), the French had two principal 
objects in view : the fur trade with the Indians, and 
the conversion of these Indians to the Christian reli- 
gion. Roman Catholic missionaries from France there- 
fore accompanied the first settlers, and were always 
prominent in the affairs of the colony. Governor 
Champlain brought to Quebec some missionaries of 
the Recollect order, a branch of the Franciscans ; but 
after a few years, the difficulties of their task proved 
so great that the Recollects asked the Jesuits, a much 
stronger order, to come over and help them. It was 
not long before nearly all the Franciscans returned 
home, and the Jesuits were practically the only mis- 
sionaries in New France. 

During the first few years, these missionaries spent 
their winters in Quebec, ministering to the colonists, 
and each spring went out to meet the Indians in their 
summer camps. It was soon found, however, that 
greater persistence was needed ; and after that, instead 
of returning home in the autumn, they followed the 
savages upon their winter hunts. In order to convert 
the Indians, the missionaries studied their many lan- 

51 



52 

guages, their habits, and their manner of thought, 
Uved as they lived, and with them often suffered un- 
told misery, for life in a savage camp is sometimes 
almost unbearable to educated and refined white men, 
such as the French Jesuits were. They did not suc- 
ceed in winning over to Christianity many of their sav- 
age companions ; indeed, the latter frequently treated 
them with great cruelty, and several of the missionaries 
were tortured to death. 

Such were the ignorance and superstition of the 
Indians, that every disaster which happened to them, 
poor luck in hunting, famine, accident, or disease, was 
attributed to the "black gowns," as the Jesuits were 
called because of their long black cassocks. When 
the missionaries were performing the rites of their 
church, baptizing children or sick people, or saying 
mass, it was thought by these simple barbarians that 
they were practicing magic for the destruction of the 
red men. Thus the Jesuits, during the hundred years 
or more which they spent in traveling far and near 
through the forests of New France, seeking new tribes 
to convert, while still laboring with those already 
known, were in a state of perpetual martyrdom for 
the cause of Christianity. No soldier has ever per- 
formed greater acts of heroism than these devoted dis- 
ciples of the cross. Several of the best and bravest 
of them were among the pioneers of the Wisconsin 
wilderness. 

The first Jesuit missionary to come to Wisconsin was 
Father Rene Menard (pr. Ray-nay^ May-nar^). He had 
sailed from France to Canada in the year 1640, when 



53 

he was thirty-five years old, and on his arrival was sent 
to the savages east of Lake Huron, among whom he 
labored and suffered for eight years. Later, he went to 
the Iroquois, in New York, and at last had to fly for 
his life, on account of an Indian plot to murder all the 
French missionaries in that country. He was for some 
time the superior of his order, at the Three Rivers 
mission, on the St. Lawrence, halfway between Que- 
bec and Montreal, and in the early autumn of 1660 
was summoned to go to Lake Superior, which had 
been made known through the explorations of Radis- 
son and Groseilliers. 

These brave adventurers had returned from their 
second voyage into the Northwest, accompanied by a 
fleet of Indian canoes ; several of the canoes were 
manned by Hurons from the Black River, who had 
come down all the way to Montreal to trade their furs 
for European goods. The red men spent some ten 
days there, feasting with the fur trade agents, and 
about the first of September set out on their return. 
With them were Menard, his servant, and seven other 
Frenchmen. 

Menard was now only fifty-five years old, but so 
severe had been his life among the Indians, that his 
hair was white, he was covered with the scars of 
wounds, and "his form was bent as with great age." 
The long journey was therefore a severe strain upon 
the good man, for in addition to the exposure to 
weather, he was forced to paddle most of the time, to 
carry heavy packs over the numerous portage trails, 
and to suffer many indignities at the hands of his hosts. 



54 



By the time the company had finally made their weary 
way up the Ottawa River, over to Georgian Bay, and 
through to Sault Ste. Marie, the missionary was in a 
deplorable condition. An accident happened to his 

canoe, and the Frenchmen 







and three Indians 
were abandoned on 
the south shore of 
Lake Superior, at Ke- 
weenaw Bay. There 
he was forced to 
spend the winter in a squalid 
Ottawa village, and nearly lost 
his life in a famine which over- 
took the natives of that region. 
In the spring of 1661, while at 
Keweenaw Bay, Menard received an 
invitation to visit a band of poor, starving 
Hurons at the headwaters of the Black River. 
Several of these Indians had been baptized by Jesuits 
before the Iroquois had driven them out from their old 
home to the east of Lake Huron. In spite of his weak 
condition, and the many perils of this journey of a 
hundred and fifty miles through the dense forest, the 
aged missionary bade farewell to the Keweenaw Otta- 
was, among whom had also wintered several French 
fur traders, and in July set out to obey the new sum- 
mons. In his company were, his servant and several 
Hurons who had come to trade with the Ottawas. 

They proceeded along the narrow trail which ran 
from Keweenaw Bay to Lake Vieux Desert, the head- 



55 

waters of the Wisconsin River, but the feeble mission- 
ary's gait was too slow for the Indians, who, after the 
manner of their kind, promptly deserted their white 
friends, leaving them to follow and obtain food as best 
they might. At the lake the Frenchmen embarked in 
a canoe upon the south-flowing Wisconsin, and paddled 
down as far as Bill Cross Rapids, some five or six miles 
above the mouth of Copper River, and not far from 
where is now the city of Merrill. From the foot of 
these rapids, they had intended leaving their canoe, and 
following a trail which led off westward through the 
woods to the headwaters of the Black, near the present 
town of Chelsea. Menard's servant took the canoe 
through the rapids, while the missionary, as usual, to 
lighten the boat, walked along the portage trail. He 
must have lost his way and perished of exposure in 
the depths of the dark and tangled forest, for his 
servant could not find any trace of him. Thus closed 
the career of Wisconsin's pioneer missionary, who died 
in the pursuit of duty, as might a soldier upon the field 
of battle. 

The death of Menard left the Lake Superior coun- 
try without a missionary; but four years later (1665), 
another Jesuit was sent thither in the person of Claude 
Allouez (pr. A/-Ioo-ay'\ who chose Chequamegon Bay 
for the seat of his labors. There he found a squalid 
village, near Radisson and Groseilliers' old forts, on the 
southwest shore ; it was composed of remnants of eight 
or ten tribes, some of whom had been driven westward 
by the Iroquois and others eastward by the Sioux. He 
called his mission La Pointe, from the neighboring 



56 



long point of land which, projecting northward, divides 
Chequamegon Bay from Lake Superior. 

Allouez could make little impression upon these 
poor savages. After four years of hard service and 
ill-treatment, he was relieved by Jacques Marquette, 
a youthful and enthusiastic priest. Late in the autumn 
of 1669, Allouez went to Fox River, and there he 
founded the mission of St. Francis Xavier, overlooking 
_. the rapids of De Pere.^ 

This was a more success- 
ful mission than the one 
at Chequamegon Bay ; 
for, during the next sum- 
mer, the western 
Sioux furiously at- 
tacked the Indian 
neighbors of Mar- 
quette and sent them all 
flying eastward, like dry 
leaves before an October gale. The zealous Marquette 
accompanied them, and, with such bands as he could 
induce to settle around him, opened a new mission 
on the mainland near Mackinac Island, at the Point 
St. Ignace of to-day. 

Meanwhile, Allouez continued his mission at De Pere, 
making long trips throughout Wisconsin, preaching to 
the Indians, and establishing the mission of St. Mark 
on the Wolf River, probably on or near Lake Shawano, 

1 Called by the early French Rapides des Peres, or " The Fathers' 
Rapids " ; but it was soon shortened into Des Ph'es, and finally, by the 
Americans, into De Pere, 




SITE OF THE MISSION AT DE PERE 



57 

where the Chippewas then Hved in great numbers. 
Later, he opened St. James mission at the Mascoutin 
village near Berhn. His churches were mere huts or 
wigwams built of reeds and bark, after the manner of 
the natives. Another Jesuit, Louis Andre, was sent 
to Wisconsin to assist this enterprising missionary, and 
they traveled among the tribes, preaching and healing 
the sick in nearly every Indian village in the wide 
country between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi. 
The career of these good missionaries was not one of 
ease. Their lives were frequently in peril ; they suf- 
fered severely from cruel treatment, hunger, cold, and 
the many hardships of forest travel ; and were re- 
warded by few conversions. 

Allouez remained in Wisconsin until 1676, when he 
departed to carry on a similar work in Illinois, dying 
thirteen years later, after a score of years spent in 
Western missions. In Wisconsin, he was succeeded, 
in turn, by several others of his order ; chief among 
them were Fathers Silvy, Albanel, Nouvel, Enjalran, 
and Chardon. Chardon was the last of his kind, for 
he, with other Frenchmen, was driven out of Wiscon- 
sin in 1728, at the time of the Fox War. 

It was during the time of Enjalran, at De Pere, that 
Nicolas Perrot, a famous fur trader, was military com- 
mandant for the French in the country west of Lake 
Michigan. In all this vast district, Enjalran was then 
the only priest. In token of his appreciation of its 
work, Perrot presented to the mission a beautiful silver 
ostcnsofium (or soldi) made in Paris. The ostensoriiini 
is one of the vessels used at the altar, in celebrating the 



58 



mass. This was in the year 1686; the following year, 
during one of the frequent outbursts of Indian hostility 
against the missionaries, Enjalran was obliged to fly for 
his life. In order to lighten his burden, he buried this 
silver vessel, evidently intending to return 
some time and regain possession of it. 

In 1802, a hundred and fifteen years 
later, a man was digging a cellar in Green 
Bay, several miles lower down the bank 
of the Fox River than is De Pere, when 
his pickax ran through this piece of sil- 
ver. It was brought to light, and for safe 
keeping was given to the Catholic priest 
then at Green Bay. Nobody would have 
known its story except for the clearly 
engraved inscription on the bottom ; the 
words are in French, but in English they 
signify: ''This soleil was given by Mr. 
Nicolas Perrot to the mission of St. Fran- 
cis Xavier, at the Bay of the Puants, 1686"; for the 
early French name for Green Bay was *' Bay of the 
Puants." The old osteiisorinm, with its inscription just 
as plainly to be read to-day as when engraved over 
two centuries ago, can now be seen among the treas- 
ures of the State Historical Society, at Madison. It 
is an enduring memorial to the labors and the suffer- 
ings of Wisconsin's first missionaries. 




SOME NOTABLE VISITORS TO EARLY WIS- 
CONSIN 

IT has been pointed out that wandering fur traders 
were in Wisconsin at a very early date. We have 
seen that Nicolet, Radisson, and Groseilliers made 
Wisconsin known to the world, at a time when Massa- 
chusetts colony was still young. It will be remembered 
that when Father Menard went to Lake Superior, in 
1660, to convert the Indians, there were several French 
fur traders with him. As early as the spring of 1662, 
these same traders had gone across country to the 
mouth of the Fox River. Three years later the 
Menominees and Pottawattomies, then Hving on both 
sides of the bay, were visited by Nicolas Perrot, a 
daring young spirit from Quebec, who had come to 
the then Far West to make his fortune in trading with 
the red men. 

Perrot was one of the most picturesque characters 
in Wisconsin history. In Canada he had been a 
servant of the Jesuit missionaries, acquiring in this 
work an education which was slight as to books, but 
broad as to knowledge of the Indians and of forest life. 
He was now twenty-one years of age, and started out 
for himself as soon as he was his own master. For 
five years Perrot wandered up and down the eastern 

59 



6o 

half of Wisconsin, frequently visiting his friends, the 
Mascoutins and Miamis, on the Fox River. He smoked 
pipes of peace with them and with other forest and 
prairie tribes, and joined in their feasts of beaver, 
dog, and other savage delicacies. 

In 1670 he and four other Frenchmen, packing their 
furs into bundles of convenient size, joined a large 
party of Indians going down to Montreal in canoes, 
to trade. Perrot did not return with his companions, 
but visited Quebec, and there received an appointment 
from the government to rally the Western tribes in a 
great council at Sault Ste. Marie. Here a treaty 
was to be made, binding the savages to an alliance 
with France. The French were very jealous of the 
English, who had, through the guidance of Radisson 
and Groseilliers, commenced fur trade operations in the 
Hudson Bay country. It was feared that they would 
entice the Indians of the upper Great Lakes to trade 
with them, for the English offered higher prices for 
furs than did the French. 

Perrot spent the winter in visiting the tribes in Wis- 
consin and along the northern shores of Lakes Michigan 
and Huron, and succeeded in inducing large bands of 
them to go to the Sault early in May (1671). The 
council was attended by an enormous gathering, repre- 
senting tribes from all over the Northwest, even from 
the north shores of Lake Superior and Hudson Bay. 
Father Marquette was there with the Ottawas, and 
several other famous missionaries came to the council. 
The interpreter, who knew Indian dialects by the score, 
was no less a person than Louis Joliet. The French 



6i 

government was represented by Saint Lusson, who con- 
cluded the desired treaty, with great ceremony took 
formal possession of all this country for the king of 
France, and reared on the spot a great cedar pole, to 
which he fastened a lead plate bearing the arms of 
his country. This symbol the simple and wondering 
savages could not understand : and as soon as the 
Frenchmen had gone home again, they tore it down, 
fearing that it was a charm which might bring bad 
luck to the tribesmen. 

And now we find Perrot suddenly losing his office, 
and forced for ten years to live a quiet life in the 
French settlements on the lower St. Lawrence. He 
married a well-to-do young woman, reared a consider- 
able family, and became a man of some influence. But 
he was always eager to be back in the forest, wander- 
ing from tribe to tribe, and engaging in the wilderness 
trade, where the profits were great, though the risks to 
Hfe and property were many. In 1681 he returned to 
the woods, but not till three years later was he so far 
west as Mackinac. 

In 1685 he appeared once more at Green Bay, this 
time holding the position of Commandant of the West, 
with a Httle company of twenty soldiers. He now had 
almost unlimited authority to explore and traffic as he 
would, for the only salary an official of that sort used to 
get, in New France, was the right to trade with the 
Indians. He had already lost money in working for 
the government as an Indian agent, and his present 
operations were wholly directed toward getting it back 
again. He went up the Fox and down the Wisconsin, 



62 

and then ascended the Mississippi to trade with the 
wild Sioux tribe. For headquarters, he erected a Uttle 
log stockade on the east bank of the Mississippi, about 
a mile above the present village of Trempealeau, and 
south of the mouth of Black River. In the year 1888, 
the site of this old stockade was discovered by a party 
of historical students, and many of the curious relics 
found there can now be seen in the museum of the State 
Historical Society, at Madison. 

All through the winter of 1685-86, Perrot traded 
here with the Sioux, He had a most captivating 
manner of treating Indians ; for a long time, few of 
them ventured to deny any request made by him. 
Chiefs from far and near would come to the Trempea- 
leau *'fort," as it was called, and hold long councils 
and feasts with the great white chief, and more than 
once he was subjected to the curious Sioux ceremony 
of being wept over. A chief would stand over his 
guest and weep copiously, his tears falling upon the 
guest's head ; when the chief's tear ducts were ex- 
hausted, he would be relieved by some headman of the 
tribe, who in turn was succeeded by another, and so 
on until the guest was well drenched. This must have 
been a very trying experience to Perrot, but he was 
shrewd enough to pretend to be much pleased by it. 

In the spring of 1686, the same year in which he 
gave the silver ostcnsorium to the Jesuit chapel at 
De Pere, the commandant proceeded up the Mississippi 
to the broadening which was, about this time, named 
Lake Pepin by the French. On the Wisconsin shore, 
not far above the present village of Pepin, he erected 



63 

another and stronger stockade, Fort St. Antoine. It 
was here, three years later, that, after the manner of 
Saint Lusson at Sault Ste. Marie, he formally took pos- 
session, in the name of his king, of all the Upper 
Mississippi valley. 

Several other forts were built by Perrot along the 
Mississippi, none of them more than groups of stout 
log houses. These were surrounded by a stockade wall 
of heavy logs well planted in the ground, sharpened at 
the top, pierced for musket fire, and sometimes sur- 
mounted by a small cannon. The stockade whose ruins 
were unearthed at Trempealeau, measured about forty- 
five by sixty feet. One of his stockades, Fort Perrot, 
was on the Minnesota shore of Lake Pepin ; still 
another. Fort St. Nicholas, was near the ** lower town" 
of the Prairie du Chien of to-day, at the confluence of 
the Wisconsin and the Mississippi ; and it also appears 
that he had a stockade lower down the Mississippi, to 
guard a lead mine which he had discovered near Galena, 
because lead was an important article for both fur 
traders and Indians. Sometimes traders fought among 
themselves, for the possession of a lead mine. 

Perrot made frequent voyages to the settlements on 
the St. Lawrence River, and engaged in some of the 
French expeditions against the hostile Iroquois of New 
York. While, on the whole, he was successful in hold- 
ing the Western tribes in friendship to New France, his 
position was not without grave perils. One time his old 
friends, the Mascoutins, rose against him, claiming that 
he had killed one of their warriors. The claim may 
have been true, for he was a man of violent temper, and 



64 

ruled the Wisconsin forests after the despotic fashion 
of an Asiatic prince. The Mascoutins captured Perrot, 
in company with a Pottawattomie chief, and carrying 
them to their village, robbed the commandant of all his 
furs, and decided to burn the prisoners at the stake. 
But while being conducted to the fire, the two managed 
by artifice to escape, and at last reached in safety their 
friends at the mouth of the Fox River. Another time, 
the Miamis captured Perrot, and would have burned 
him except for the interference of the Fox Indians, 
with whom he was friendly. 

In 1699, owing to the uprising of the Foxes, the king 
ordered that all the Western posts be abandoned, 'and 
their little garrisons removed to Montreal and Quebec. 
Thus suddenly ended the career of Perrot, who returned 
a poor man, for his recent losses in furs had been heavy, 
and his expenses of keeping up the posts large. Again 
and again he sought redress from the government, and 
the Wisconsin Foxes earnestly pleaded that he be sent 
back to them, as *'the best beloved of all the French 
who have ever been among us." But his star had set, 
he no longer had influence ; and it had just been decided 
to punish his friends the Foxes. Perrot lived about 
twenty years longer, on the banks of the Lower St. 
Lawrence, and died in old age, like JoHet, in neglect 
and poverty. 

During much of the time that Perrot was comman- 
dant of the West, several other great fur traders were 
conducting operations in Wisconsin. The greatest of 
these was the Chevalier La Salle, the famous explorer, 
who plays a large part on the stage of Western history, 



65 

particularly in the history of the Mississippi valley. It 
has been claimed for La Salle that he was in Wisconsin 
in 1 67 1, two years before Joliet, and actually canoed on 
the Mississippi River, but this is more than doubtful. 
We do know that in 1673 one of his agents was trading 
with the Sioux to the west of Lake Superior ; and that 



- ^ 




in 1679 h^ came to Green Bay in a small vessel called 
the Griffin, the first sailing craft on the Great Lakes 
above the cataract of Niagara. La Salle was a coureur 
de bois, most of this time, for he operated in a field far 
larger than that for which he had a license. Leaving 
his ship, which was afterward wrecked, he and fourteen 
of his men proceeded in canoes southward along the 
western coast of Lake Michigan, visiting the sites of 

STO. OF BADGER STA. — 5 



66 

Milwaukee and other Wisconsin lakeshore cities. 
Finally, after many strange adventures, they ascended 
St. Joseph River, crossed over to the Kankakee 
River, and spent the winter in a log fort which they 
built on Peoria Lake, a broadening of the IlKnois River. 

At least one priest was thought necessary in every 
well-equipped exploring expedition. La Salle had quar- 
reled with the Jesuits, and hated them ; hence the 
ministers of religion in his party were three Franciscan 
friars, one of them being Father Louis Hennepin, 
who afterward became famous. When La Salle deter- 
mined to spend the winter at Peoria Lake, he sent 
Hennepin forward with two coureiirs dc bois, to explore 
the upper waters of the Mississippi. These three ad- 
venturers descended the Illinois River in their canoe, 
and then ascended the Mississippi to the Falls of 
St. Anthony, where now lies the great city of Min- 
neapolis ; there they met some Sioux, and went with 
them upon a buffalo hunt. But the Indians, although 
at first friendly, soon turned out to be a bad lot, for 
they robbed their guests, and practically held them as 
prisoners. 

This was in the early summer of 1680. Luckily for 
Hennepin and his companions, the powerful coitreiir de 
bois, Daniel Graysolon Duluth {du LutJi) appeared on 
the scene. Duluth was, next to Perrot, the leading man 
in the country around Lake Superior and the Upper 
Mississippi valley. He had been spending the winter 
trading with the Sioux in the lake country of northern 
Minnesota, and along Pigeon River, which is now the 
dividino: line between Minnesota and Canada. With a 



67 

party of ten of his boatmen, he set out in June to reach 
the Mississippi, his route taking him up the turbulent 
little Bois Brule River, over the mile and a half of 
portage trail to Upper Lake St. Croix, and down 
St. Croix River to the Mississippi. On reaching the 
latter, he learned of the fact that Europeans were being 
detained and maltreated by the Sioux, and at once went 
and rescued them. The summer was spent among the 
Indians in company with Hennepin's party, who, now 
that Duluth was found to be their friend, were hand- 
somely treated. In the autumn, Duluth, Hennepin, and 
their companions all returned down the Mississippi, up 
the Wisconsin, and down the Fox, and spent the winter 
at Mackinac. After that, Duluth was frequently upon 
the Fox-Wisconsin route, and traded for buffalo hides 
and other furs with the Wisconsin tribes. 

Another famous visitor to Wisconsin, in those early 
days, was Pierre le Sueur, who in 1683 traveled from 
Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, over the Fox-Wis- 
consin route, and traded with the Sioux at the Falls of 
St. Anthony and beyond. His fur trade grew, in a few 
years, to large proportions ; for he was a shrewd man, 
and was related to some of the officials of New France. 
This enabled him to secure trading licenses for the 
Western country, and other valuable privileges, which 
gave him an advantage over the unlicensed traders, like 
Duluth, who had no official friends. In 1693, Le Sueur 
was trading in Duluth's old country ; and, in order to 
protect the old Bois Brule and St. Croix route from 
marauding Indians, he built a log fort at either end, 
one on Chequamegon Bay, and the other on an island 



68 



in the Mississippi, below the mouth of the St. Croix. 
A few years later, Le Sueur was in France, where he 
obtained a , license to operate certain ''mines of lead. 



copper, and 



blue and green earth," which he claimed 
to have discovered along the banks 
Upper Mississippi. In 
the summer of 
1700, he and his 
party opened 
lead mines in the 
neighborhood of 
the present Du- 
buque and Gale- 
na, and also near 
the modern town 
of Potosi, Wiscon- 
sin. He does not 
appear to have 
been very success- 
ful as a miner ; but 
his fur trade was 
still enormous, and 
his many explora- 
tions led to the Up- 
per Mississippi being 
correctly represented 
ps of America, made 
by the European geographers. 
A missionary priest. Father St. Cosme, of Quebec, 
was in Green Bay in October, 1699, and proposed to 
visit the Mississippi region, by way of the Fox and 




eg 

Wisconsin rivers. But the warlike Foxes, who were 
giving the French a great deal of trouble at this time, 
had forbidden any white man passing over this favorite 
waterway, so St. Cosme was obliged to go the way that 
La Salle had followed, up the west shore of Lake 
Michigan and through Illinois. The party stopped at 
many places along the Wisconsin lake shore, but the 
only ones which we can identify are the sites of She- 
boygan and Milwaukee, where there w^ere large Indian 
villages. 

It is not to be supposed that these were all the 
Frenchmen to tarry in or pass through Wisconsin 
during the latter half of the seventeenth century. 
Doubtless there were scores, if not hundreds of others, 
fur traders, voyageurs, soldiers, and priests ; we have 
selected but a few of those whose movements were 
recorded in the writings of their time. Wisconsin was 
a key point in the geography of the West ; here were 
the interlaced sources of rivers flowing north into Lake 
Superior, east and northeast into Lake Michigan, and 
west and southwest into the Mississippi River. The 
canoe traveler from Lower Canada could, with short 
portages, pass through Wisconsin into waters reaching 
far into the interior of the continent, even to the Rocky 
Mountains, the lakes of the Canadian Northwest, and 
the Gulf of Mexico. This is why the geography of 
Wisconsin became known so early in the history of our 
country, why Wisconsin Indians played so important a 
part on the stage of border warfare, and why history was 
being made here at a time when some of the States to 
the east of us were still almost unknown to white men. 



A QUARTER OF A CENTURY OF WARFARE 

WISCONSIN was important, from a geographical 
point of view, because here were the meeting 
places of waters which flowed in so many directions ; 
here were the gates which opened upon widely diver- 
gent paths. The explorer and the fur trader soon 
discovered this, and Wisconsin became known to them 
at a very early period. France had two important 
colonies in North America, New France (or Canada), 
upon the St. Lawrence River, and Louisiana, extend- 
ing northward indefinitely from the Gulf of Mexico. 
It was found necessary, in pushing her claim to the 
ownership of all of the continent west of the Alleghany 
Mountain^ and east of the Rockies, to connect New 
France and Louisiana with a chain of little forts along 
the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. The forts 
at Detroit, Mackinac, Green Bay, Prairie du Chien, 
and Kaskaskia (in Illinois) were links in this chain, at 
the center of which was Wisconsin ; or, to use another 
figure, Wisconsin was the keystone of the arch which 
bridged the two French colonies. 

There were six principal canoe routes between the 
Great Lakes and the Mississippi : one by way of the 
Maumee and Wabash rivers, another by way of St. 

70 



71 

Joseph River and the Kankakee and the IlUnois, an- 
other by way of the St. Joseph, Wabash, and Ohio 
rivers, still another by way of the Chicago River and 
the Illinois, and we have already seen that from Lake 
Superior there were used the Bois Brule and the St. 
Croix routes. But the easiest of all, the favorite gate- 
way, was the Fox-Wisconsin route, for all the others 
involved considerable hardship ; this is why Wisconsin 
was so necessary to the French military officers in 
holding control of the interior of the continent. 

Affairs went well enough so long as the French were 
on good terms with the warlike and crafty Fox Indians, 
who held control of the Fox River. But after a time 
the Foxes becam.e uneasy. The fur trade in New 
France was in the hands of a monopoly, which charged 
large fees for licenses, and fixed its own prices on the 
furs which it bought, and on the Indian goods which it 
sold to the forest traders. On th 2 other hand, the fur 
trade in the English colonies east of the Alleghanies 
was free ; any man could engage in it and go wherever 
he would. The result was that the English, with the 
strong competition among themselves, paid higher 
prices to the Indians for furs than the French could 
afford, and their prices for articles which the Indians 
wanted were correspondingly lower than those of the 
French. 

The Indians were always eager for a bargain ; and 
although the French declared that those trading with 
the English were enemies of New France, they per- 
sisted in secretly sending trading parties to the Eng- 
lish, who were now beginning to swarm into the Ohio 



72 



valley. The Foxes, in particular, grew very angry with 
the French for charging them such high prices, and 
resented the treatment which they received at the hands 
of the traders from Quebec and Montreal. At one time 
they told Perrot that they would pack up their wig- 
wams, and move in a body to the Wabash River or to 
the Ohio, and form a league with the fierce Iroquois 
of New York, who were friends and neighbors of the 
English. Had they done so, the French 
fur trade in the West would have 
suffered greatly. 

The Foxes began to 
make it disagreeable 
> . for the French in 
Wisconsin. They 
- insisted on collect- 
ing tolls on fur trade 
bateaux which were be- 
ing propelled up the Fox 
River, and even stopped 
traders entirely ; several 
murders of Frenchmen 
were also charged to 
them. The French there- 
upon determined to punish 
these rebellious savages who sat 
within the chief gateway to the 
' ' Mississippi. In the winter of 

a large party of soldiers, coureiirs des bois, 
and half-breeds, under a captain named Marin, ascended 
the Fox River on snowshoes and attacked the Foxes, 




1 706-07 



73 

together with their alHes, the Sacs, at a large village 
at Winnebago Rapids, near where is now the city of 
Neenah. 

Several hundreds of the savages were killed in this 
assault, but its effect was to make the Foxes the more 
troublesome. A few summers later, this same Marin 
arranged again to surprise the enemy. His boats were 
covered with oilcloth blankets, in the manner adopted 
by the traders to protect the goods against rain ; only 
two voyageiu's were visible in each boat to propel it. 
Arriving at the foot of Winnebago Rapids, the canoes 
were ranged along the shore, and nearly fifteen hundred 
Indians came out and squatted on the bank, ready to 
collect toll of the traders. All of a sudden the covers 
were thrown off, and the armed men appeared and 
raked the Indians with quick volleys of lead, while a 
small cannon in Marin's boat increased the effectiveness 
of the attack. Tradition says that over a thousand 
Foxes and Sacs fell in this massacre ; this is one of the 
many incidents in white men's relations with the Indi- 
ans, wherein savages were outsavaged in the practice 
of ferocious treachery. 

Despite the great slaughter, there appear to have 
been enough Foxes left to continue giving the French 
a great deal of annoyance. There were fears at Que- 
bec that it might be necessary to abandon the attempt 
to connect New France and Louisiana by a trail 
through the Western woods, in which case the Eng- 
lish would have a free run of the Mississippi valley. 
There seem, however, not to have been any more war- 
like expeditions to Wisconsin for several years. But 



74 

in May, 171 2, the French induced large numbers of the 
Foxes, with their friends, the Mascoutins, the Kicka- 
poos, and the Sacs, to come to Detroit for the making 
of a treaty of peace. At the same time the French 
also assembled there large bands of the Pottawattomies 
and Menominees from Wisconsin, with Illinois Indians, 
some camps from Missouri, and Hurons and Ottawas 
from the Lake Huron country; all of these were ene- 
mies of the Foxes. 

The records do not show just why it happened ; but 
for some reason the French and their allies fired on the 
Foxes and their friends, who were well intrenched in a 
palisaded camp outside the walls of Detroit. A great 
siege ensued, lasting nineteen days, in which the 
slaughter on both sides was heavy ; but at last the 
Foxes, worn out by loss of numbers, hunger, and dis- 
ease, took advantage of a dark, rainy night to escape 
northward. They were pursued the following day, but 
again intrenched themselves with much skill, and with- 
stood another siege of five days, when they surren- 
dered. The French and their savage allies fell upon 
the poor captives with fury and slew nearly all of them, 
men, women, and children. 

The poor Foxes had lost in this terrible experience 
upward of fifteen hundred of the bravest of their tribe, 
which was now reduced to a few half-starved bands. 
But their spirit was not gone. Next year the officers 
at Quebec wrote home to Paris : " The Fox Indians 
are daily becoming more insolent." They had begun 
to change their tactics ; instead of wasting their ener- 
gies on the French, they began to make friends 



75 



with, or to intimidate, neighboring tribes. By means 
of small, secret war parties, they would noiselessly 
swarm out of the Wisconsin forests and strike hard 
blows at the prairie Indians of Illinois, who preferred 
to remain their enemies. In this manner the Illinois 
Indians were reduced to a mere handful, and were com- 
pelled to seek shelter under the guns of the French 
fort at Kaskaskia. At the same time the Foxes were 
in close alliance with the Sioux and other great 
western tribes, who helped them lock the 
gate of the Fox-Wisconsin rivers, and plun- 
der and murder French traders wherever 
they could be found throughout Wisconsin 

Again it seemed evident that 
New France, unless something 
were done, could never maintain 
its chain of communication with Lou- 
isiana, or conduct any fur trade in 
the Northwest. The something 
decided on was an attempt to 
destroy the Foxes, root and \ 
branch. For this purpose 
there was sent out to Wis- 
consin, in 1716, a well- 
equipped expedition 
under an experienced M-L 
captain named De 
Louvigny, number- ^^ 
ing eight hundred 
men, whites and 
Indians. The '^^.. jgL. 




76 

Foxes were found living in a walled town upon the 
mound now known as Little Butte des Morts, on the 
west side of Fox River, opposite the present Neenah, 
The wall consisted of three rows of stout palisades, re- 
enforced by a deep ditch ; tradition says there were 
here assembled five hundred braves and three thousand 
squaws and other noncombatants. 

The French found it necessary to lay siege to this 
forest fortress, just as they would attack a European 
city of that time ; trenches and mines were laid, and 
pushed forward at night, until, at the close of the 
third day, everything was ready to blow up the pali- 
sades. At this point the Foxes surrendered, but they 
gained easy terms for those days, for De Louvigny was 
no butcher of men, and appeared to appreciate their 
bravery. They gave up their prisoners, they furnished 
enough slaves to the allies of the French to take the 
place of the warriors slain, they agreed to furnish furs 
enough to pay the expenses of the expedition, and sent 
six hostages to Quebec to answer for their future be- 
havior. The next year, De Louvigny returned to the 
valley of the Fox, from Quebec, and made a treaty with 
the Foxes, but nothing came of it. Treaties were easily 
made with Lidian tribes, in the days of New France, 
and as easily broken by either side. 

In the very next year, the Foxes were again making 
raids on the French-loving Illinois, and the entire West 
was, as usual, torn by strife. It was evident that the 
Foxes were trying to gain control of the Illinois River, 
and thus command both of the principal roads to the 
Mississippi. The French were at this time enthusi- 



77 

astic over great schemes for opening mines on the 
Mississippi, operating northward from Louisiana; agri- 
culture was beginning to flourish around Kaskaskia; 
and grain, flour, and furs were being shipped down the 
Mississippi to the French islands in the West Indies, 
and across the ocean to France. More than ever was 
it necessary to unite Louisiana with Canada by a line 
of communication. 

But just now the Foxes were stronger than they had 
been at any time. Their shrewd warriors had organized 
a great confederacy to shut out the French, and thereby 
advance the cause of EngUsh trade, although it is not 
known that the English assisted in this widespread 
conspiracy. Fox warriors were sent with pipes of peace 
among the most distant tribes of the West, the South, 
and the North, and it seemed as if the whole interior of 
the continent were rising in arms. A French writer of 
the period says of the Foxes : " Their fury increased as 
their forces diminished. On every side they raised up 
new enemies against us. The whole course and neigh- 
borhood of the Mississippi is infested with Indians with 
whom we have no quarrel, and who yet give to the 
French no quarter." 

This condition lasted for a few years. But Indian 
leagues do not ordinarily long endure. We soon find 
the Foxes weak again, with few to back them ; in 1726, 
at a council in Green Bay, they were apologizing for 
having made so much trouble. The French were, how- 
ever, still afraid of these wily folk, and two years later 
(1728) a little army of four hundred Frenchmen and nine 
hundred Indian allies advanced on the Fox villages by 



78 

way of the Ottawa River route and Mackinac. The 
Foxes, together with their Winnebago friends, had heard 
of the approach of the whites, and fled ; but the white 
invaders burned every deserted village in the valley, 
and destroyed all the crops, leaving the red men to 
face the rigor of winter with neither huts nor food. 

Fleeing from their native valley before the onset of 
the army, the unhappy fugitives, said to have been 
four thousand in number, descended the Wisconsin and 
ascended the Mississippi, to find their Sioux allies in 
the neighborhood of Lake Pepin. But the Sioux had 
been won by French presents, distributed from the fur 
trade fort on that lake, and turned the starving tribes- 
men away ; the ever-treacherous Winnebagoes of the 
party sided with the Sioux; the Sacs expressed repent- 
ance, and hurried home to Green Bay to make their 
peace with the French ; the Mascoutins now proved to 
be enemies. Thus deserted, the disconsolate Foxes 
passed the winter in Iowa, and sent messengers to the 
Green Bay fort, begging for forgiveness. 

But there was no longer any peace for the Foxes. 
Indians friendly with the French attacked one of their 
Iowa camps ; and in the autumn of 1729 they sought in 
humble fashion to return to the valley of the Fox ; but 
they were ambuscaded by a French-directed party of 
Ottawas, Menominees, Chippewas, and Winnebagoes, 
and after a fierce fight lost nearly three hundred by 
death and capture ; the prisoners, men, women, and 
children, were burned at the stake. 

Turning southward, the greater part of the survivors 
of this ill-starred tribe sought a final asylum upon 



79 

the Illinois River, not far from Peoria. Three noted 
French commanders, heads of garrisons in the Western 
country, now gathered their forces, which aggregated a 
hundred and seventy Frenchmen and eleven hundred 
Indians; and in August, 1730, gave battle to the fugi- 
tives, who were now outnumbered full four to one. 
The contest, notable for the gallant sorties of the be- 
sieged and the cautious military engineering of the 
besiegers, lasted throughout twenty-two days; probably 
never in the history of the West has there been wit- 
nessed more heroic conduct than was displayed during 
this remarkable campaign. It was inevitable that the 
Foxes should lose in the end, but they sold themselves 
dearly. Not over fifty or sixty escaped ; and it is said 
that three hundred warriors perished in battle or after- 
wards at the stake, while six hundred women and chil- 
dren were either tomahawked or burned. 

It is surprising, after all these massacres, that there 
were any members of the tribe left ; yet we learn that 
two years later (1732) three hundred of them were liv- 
ing peaceably on the banks of the Wisconsin River, 
when still another French and Indian band swept down 
upon and either captured or slaughtered them all. Of 
another small party, which sought mercy from the offi- 
cer of the fort at Green Bay, several, including the 
head chief of the Foxes, Kiala, were sent away into 
slavery, and wore away their lives in menial drudgery 
upon the tropical island of Martinique. 

The remainder took refuge with the Sacs, on Fox 
River ; and the following year the French commander 
at Green Bay asked the Sacs to give them up. This 



8o 

time the Sacs proved to be good friends, and refused ; 
and in the quarrel which followed at the Sac town, 
eight French soldiers were killed. This led to later 
retaliation on the part of the French, but in the battle 
which was fought both sides lost heavily ; and then 
both Sacs and Foxes fled from the country, never to 
return. They settled upon the banks of the Des 
Moines River, in Iowa, whither French hate again 
sought them out in 1734. This last expedition, how- 
ever, was a failure, and the Fox War w^as finally ended, 
after twenty-five years of almost continuous bloodshed. 
During this war not only had the great tribe of the 
Foxes been almost annihilated, but the power of France 
in the West had meanwhile been greatly weakened by 
the persistent opposition of those who had held the key 
to her position. 



THE COMMERCE OF THE FOREST 

WE have seen in previous chapters why Wisconsin, 
with her interminghng rivers, was considered 
the key to the French position in the interior of North 
America; why it was that fur traders early sought this 
State, and erected log forts along its rivers and lakes to 
protect their commerce with the people of the forest. 
It remains to be told what were the conditions of this 
widespreading and important forest trade. 

The French introduced to our Indians iron pots and 
kettles, which were vastly stronger than their crude 
utensils of clay ; iron fishhooks, hatchets, spears, and 
guns, which were not only more durable, but far more 
effective than their old weapons of stone and copper 
and bone; cloths and blankets of many colors, from 
which attractive clothing was more easily made than 
from the skins of beasts ; and glass beads and silver 
trinkets, for the decoration of their clothing and bodies, 
which cost far less labor to obtain than did ornaments 
made from clam shells. To secure these French goods, 
the Indians had but to hunt and bring the skins to 
the white men. The Indian who could secure a gun 
found it easier to get skins than before, and he also had 
a weapon which made him more powerful against his 

STO. OF BADGER STA. 6 8 1 



82 

enemies. It was not long before the Indian forgot how 
to make utensils and weapons for himself, and became 
very dependent on the white trader. This is why the 
fur trade was at the bottom of every event in the 
forest, and for full two hundred years was of supreme 
importance to all the people who lived in the Wisconsin 
woods. 

All trade in New France was in the control of a 
monopoly, which charged heavy fees for licenses, 
severely punished all the unlicensed traders who could 
be detected, and fixed its own prices for everything. 
French traders were obliged, therefore, to charge the 
Indians more for their goods than the English charged 
for theirs ; and it was a continual and often bloody 
struggle to keep the Indians of the Northwest from 
having any trade with the English colonists from the 
Atlantic coast, who had with great labor crossed the 
Alleghany Mountains and were now swarming into 
the Ohio River valley. It was impossible to prevent the 
EngUsh trade altogether, but the policy was in the main 
successful, although it cost the French a deal of anxi- 
ety, and sometimes great expense in military operations. 

During the greater part of the French regime in Wis- 
consin, the bulk of the goods for the Indians came up 
by the Ottawa River route, because the warlike Iroquois 
of New York favored the English, and for a long time 
kept Frenchmen from entering the lower lakes of Onta- 
rio and Erie. Finally, however, after the fort at Detroit 
was built (1701), the lower lakes came to be used. 

It was, by either route, a very long and tiresome jour- 
ney from Quebec or Montreal to Wisconsin, and owing 



83 



to the early freezing of the Straits of Mackinac, but 
one trip could be made in a year. It was not, however, 
necessary for every trader to go to the "lower settle- 
ments " each year. At the Western forts large stocks 
of goods were kept, and there the furs , were stored, 
sometimes for several seasons, until a ^'] great fleet 
of canoes could be made up by y ^^ \ bands of 
traders and friendly Indians; and /w, / then the 
expedition to Montreal was , ,1' f.^^ made, with 
considerable display of bar- 
baric splendor. When the 
traders reached Montre- 
al, the inhab 




itants of the settlement turned out to welcome their 
visitors from the wilderness, and something akin to a 
great fair was held, at which speculators bought up the 
furs, feasts were eaten and drunk, and fresh treaties 



84 

of peace were made with the Indians. A week or two 
would thus pass in universal festivity, at the end of 
which traders and savages would seek their canoes, 
and, amid volleys of cannon from the fort, martial 
music, the fluttering of flags, and the shouts of the 
habitants, the fleet would push off, and soon be swal- 
lowed again by the all-pervading forest. 

When the French were driven out of Canada, in 
1760, and the British assumed control, the English 
Hudson Bay Company began spreading its operations 
over the Northwest. But in 1783, at the close of the 
Revolutionary War, the Northwest Company was organ- 
ized, with headquarters at Montreal. The British still 
held possession of our Northwest long after the treaty 
with the United States was signed. Soon sailing ships 
were introduced, and many goods were thus brought to 
Mackinac, Green Bay, and Chequamegon Bay ; never- 
theless, canoes and bateaux, together with the more 
modern ''Mackinac boats" and "Durham boats," were 
for many years largely used upon these long Western 
journeys from Montreal. To a still later date were 
these rude craft sent out from the Mackinac ware- 
houses to Wisconsin, or from Mackinac to the famous 
headquarters of the company at the mouth of Pigeon 
River, on the western shore of Lake Superior, the 
" Grand Portage," as it was called. 

It was a life filled with great perils, by land and 
flood ; many were the men who lost their lives in 
storms, in shooting river rapids, in deadly quarrels 
with one another or with the savages, by exposure to 
the elements, or by actual starvation. Yet there was a 



85 



glamour over these wild experiences, as is customary 
wherever men are associated as comrades in an outdoor 
enterprise involving common dangers and hardships. 
The excitement and freedom of the fur trade appealed 
especially to the volatile, fun loving French ; and music 
and badinage and laughter often filled the day. 

After the Americans assumed control, in 1816, Con- 
gress forbade the British to conduct the fur trade in 
our country. This was 
to prevent them from 
influencing the Western 
Indians to war; but 
turning out the English 
traders served greatly 
to help the American 
Fur Company, founded 
by John Jacob Astor, 
and having its head- 
quarters on the Island 
of Mackinac. Never- 
theless the agents, the 
clerks, and the voyageurs were still nearly all of them 
Frenchmen, as of old, and there was really very little 
change in the methods of doing business, except that 
Astor managed to reap most of the profits. 

The fur trade lasted, as a business of prime impor- 
tance to Wisconsin, until about 1835. It was at its 
greatest height in 1820, at which time Green Bay was 
the chief settlement in Wisconsin. By 1835 new inter- 
ests had arisen, with the development of the lead mines 
in the southwest, and with the advent of agricultural 




JOHN JACOB ASTOR 



86 

settlers from the East, upon the close of the Black 
Hawk War'(i832). 

The fur trade led the way to the agricultural and 
manufacturing life of to-day. The traders naturally 
chose Indian villages as the sites for most of their 
posts, and such villages were generally at places well 
selected for the purpose. They were on portage trails, 
where craft had to be carried around falls or rapids, as 
at De Pere, Kaukauna, Appleton, and Neenah ; or they 
were on portage plains, between distinct water systems, 
as at Portage and Sturgeon Bay ; or they were at the 
mouths or junctions of rivers, as at Milwaukee, Sheboy- 
gan, Oshkosh, Lacrosse, and Prairie du Chien ; or they 
occupied commanding positions on lake or river bank, 
overlooking a wide stretch of country. Thus most of 
the leading cities of Wisconsin are on the sites of old 
Indian villages ; for the reasons which led to their 
choice by the Indians held good with the white pio- 
neers in the old days when rivers and lakes were the 
chief highways. Thus we have first the Indian village, 
then the trading post, and later the modern town. 

The Indian trails were also largely used by the trad- 
ers in seeking the natives in their villages ; later these 
trails developed into public roads, when American set- 
tlers came to occupy the country. Thus we see that 
Wisconsin was quite thoroughly explored, its principal 
cities and highways located, and its water ways mapped 
out by the early French, long before the inrush of 
agricultural colonists. 



IN THE OLD FRENCH DAYS 

IN establishing their chain of rude forts, or trading 
posts, along the Great Lakes and through the valley 
of the Mississippi, the French had no desire to plant 
agricultural settlements in the West. Their chief 
thought was to keep the continental interior as a great 
fur bearing wilderness ; to encourage the Indians to 
hunt for furs, by supplying all their other wants with 
articles made in Europe ; and to prevent them from 
carrying any of their furs to the English, who were 
always underbidding the French in prices. 

The officers of these forts were instructed to bully 
or to persuade the Indians, as occasion demanded ; and 
some of them became very successful in this forest 
diplomacy. Around most of the forts were small groups 
of temporary settlers, who could hardly be called colo- 
nists, for they expected when they had made their 
fortunes, or when their working days were over, to 
return to their own people on the lower St. Lawrence 
River. It was rather an army of occupation, than a 
body of settlers. Nearly every one in the settlement 
was dependent on the fur trade, either as agent, clerk, 
trapper, boatman, or general employee. 

Sometimes these little towns were the outgrowth of 
early Jesuit missions, as La Fointe (on Chequamegon 

87 



Bay), or Green Bay (De Pere); but sooner or later 
the fur trade became the chief interest. Most of the 
towns, however, Hke Milwaukee, La Crosse, or Prairie 
du Chien, were the direct outgrowth of commerce with 
the savages. There were trading posts, also, on Lakes 
Chetek, Flambeau, Court Orielles, and Sandy, but the 
settlements about them were very small, and they never 
grew into permanent towns, as did some of the others. 

At all these places, the little log forts served as de- 
pots for furs and the goods used in trading with the 
Indians ; they were also used as rallying points for the 
traders and other white inhabitants of the district, in 
times of Lidian attack. They would have been of 
slight avail against an enemy with cannon, but afforded 
sufficient protection against the arrows, spears, and 
muskets of savages. 

The French Canadians who Uved in these waterside 
hamlets were an easy-going folk. Nearly all of them 
were engaged in the fur trade at certain seasons of the 
year. The bourgeois, or masters, were the chiefs. The 
voyagcurs were men of all work, propelHng the canoes 
and bateaux when afloat, carrying the craft and their 
contents over portages, transporting packs of goods and 
furs along the forest trails, caring for the camps, and 
acting as guards for the persons and property of their 
employers. The cojireiirs de bois, or wood rangers, 
were everywhere ; they were devoted to a life in the 
woods, for the fun and excitement in it ; they conducted 
trade on their own account, far off in the most inacces- 
sible places, and were men of great daring. Then there 
were the Jiabitants, or permanent villagers ; sometimes 



89 



these worked as voyageiirs, but for the most part 
they were farmers in a small way, cultivating long, 
narrow '' claims " running at right angles to the river 
bank ; one can still find at Green Bay and Prairie du 
Chien, traces of some of these old " French claims." 
The object of having them so narrow was, that the 



close 









to one another, 



habitants could live 
along the waterside. 
They were of a 
very social nature, 
these French habit- 
ants. They liked 
to meet frequently, 
enjoy their pipes, 
and tell stories of '^'< 
the hunt or of old days ^|, 
on the St. Lawrence 
They were famous fid 
dlers, too. No wilder- 
ness so far away 
that the little French 
fiddle had not been "/^ 
there ; the Indians ^'"^f 
part of the furniture 



'^ -- recognized it as a 
of every fur trader's camp. 
Music appealed strongly to these warm natures, and 
the songs of the zwyagenrs, as they propelled their 
canoes along the Wisconsin rivers, always greatly inter- 
ested travelers. French Canadians are still living in 
Wisconsin, who remember those gay melodies which 
echoed through our forests a hundred years ago. 
The old French life continued in Wisconsin until well 




90 

into the nineteenth century. Although New France fell 
in 1760, and the British came into control, they never 
succeeded in Anglicizing Wisconsin. EngHsh fur com- 
panies succeeded the French, and British soldiers occu- 
pied the Wisconsin forts ; but the fur trade itself had 
still to be conducted through French residents, who 
alone had the confidence of the Indians. Great Britain 
was supposed to surrender all this country to the 
United States in 1796; but it was really 18 16 before 
the American flag floated over Green Bay, and the 
American Fur Company came into power. But, even 
under this company, most of the actual trading was 
done through the French ; so we may say that as long 
as the fur trade remained the chief industry of Wiscon- 
sin, about to the year 1835, the old French Hfe was still 
maintained, and French methods were everywhere in 
evidence. 

It is surprising how strongly marked upon our Wis- 
consin are the memories of the old French days. A 
quiet, unobtrusive people, were those early French, 
without high ambitions, and simple in their tastes ; yet 
they and theirs have displayed remarkable tenacity of 
life, and doubtless their effect upon us of to-day will 
never be effaced. Our map is sprinkled all over 
with the French names which they gave to our hills 
and lakes and streams, and early towns. We may here 
mention a few only, at random : Lakes Flambeau, 
Court Oreilles, Pepin, Vieux Desert ; the rivers Bois 
Brule, Eau Claire, Eau Pleine, Embarrass, St. Croix ; 
the counties Eau Claire, Fond du Lac, La Crosse, Lang- 
lade, Marquette, Portage, Racine, St. Croix, Trem- 



91 

pealeau ; the towns of Racine, La Crosse, Prairie du 
Chien, Butte des Morts. Scores of others can readily 
be found in the atlas. In the cities of Green Bay, 
Kaukauna, Portage, and Prairie du Chien, and the 
dreamy little Fox River hamlet of Grand Butte des 
Morts, are still to be found little closely-knit colonies 
of French Creoles, descendants of those who lived and 
ruled under the old French regime. 

The time must come, in the molding of all the 
foreign elements in our midst into the American of the 
future, when the French element will no longer exist 
among us as an element, but merely as a memory. If 
our posterity can inherit from those early French occu- 
pants of our soil their simple tastes, their warm hearts, 
their happy temperament, their social virtues, then the old 
French regime will have brought a blessing to Wiscon- 
sin, and not merely a halo of historical romance. 



THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH 

UPON the eighth day of September, 1760, the 
French flag ceased to fly over Canada. In a 
long and bitter struggle, lasting at intervals through 
an entire century, French and English had been 
battling with each other for the control of the in- 
terior of this continent ; and the former had lost 
everything at the decisive battle on the Plains of 
Abraham, before the walls of Quebec. 

Reduced to the last extremity, the authorities of 
New France had ordered her fur traders, coureurs 
de bois and all, to hurry down to the settlements on 
the St. Lawrence, and aid in protecting them against 
the English. Thus in the Wisconsin forests, when the 
end came, there were left no Frenchmen of impor- 
tance. Leaving their Indian friends, and many of them 
their Indian wives and half-breed families, they had 
obeyed the far away summons, and several lost their 
lives in the great battle or in the skirmishes which 
preceded it. The others, who at last returned, were 
quick to show favor to the English, for little they 
really cared who were their political masters so long 
as they were let alone. The Indians, too, although 
personally they preferred the French to the English, 



93 

were glad enough to see the latter, because they 
brought better prices for furs. 

Wisconsin was so far away that it took a long time 
for British soldiers to reach the deserted and tumble- 
down fort at Green Bay. About the middle of October. 
1 76 1, there arrived from Mackinac Lieutenant James 
Gorrell and seventeen men to hold all of this country 
for King George. The station had been called by 
the French Fort St. Francis, but the name was now 
changed to Fort Edward Augustus. 

It was a very lonely, and dismal winter for the 
British soldiers, for nearly all the neighboring savages 
were away on their winter hunt and did not return until 
spring. Mackinac, then a poor little trading village, 
was two hundred forty miles away ; there was a trading 
post at St. Josephs on the southeast shore of Lake 
Michigan, four hundred miles distant; and the near- 
est French villages on the Mississippi were eight hun- 
dred miles of canoe journey to the southwest. All 
between was savagery : here and there a squalid In- 
dian village, with its conical wigwams of bark or 
matted reeds, pitched on the shore of a lake, at the 
foot of a portage trail, or on the banks of a forest 
stream. Now and then a French trading party passed 
along the frozen trails, following the natives on the 
hunt and poisoning their minds against the new- 
comers, who were struggling to make their poor old 
stockade a fairly decent shelter against the winter 
storms. 

But, when the savages returned to Green Bay in 
the spring, they met with fair words from Gorrell, a 



94 

plentiful distribution of presents, and good prices for 
furs, and their hearts were won. In 1763 occurred 
the great uprising led by Pontiac against the Eng- 
lish in the Northwest, during which the garrison at 
Mackinac was massacred. This disturbed the friend- 
ship of Gorrell's neighbors, with the exception of a 
Menominee band, headed by chief Ogemaunee ; and 
in June of that year the little garrison, together with 
the EngUsh traders at Green Bay, found it neces- 
sary to leave hastily for Cross Village, on the east- 
ern shore of Lake Michigan, escorted by Ogemaunee 
and ninety painted Menominees, who had volunteered 
to protect these EngUshmen from the unfriendly 
Indians. 

At Cross Village were several soldiers who had 
escaped from Mackinac, and the two parties and their 
escorts soon left in canoes for Montreal, by the way of 
Ottawa River. This old fur trade route was followed 
in order to escape Pontiac's Indians, who controlled 
the country about Detroit and along the lower lake. 
They arrived safely at their destination in August. 
The following year there was held a great council at 
Niagara, presided over by the famous Sir William 
Johnson, who was then serving as British superin- 
tendent for the Northern Indians. At this council 
Ogemaunee was present representing the Menominees 
of Wisconsin. In token of his valuable services in 
escorting Lieutenant Gorrell's party to Montreal, and 
thereby delivering them safely from the great danger 
which threatened, Ogemaunee was given a certificate, 
which read? as follows: — ■ 



95 



m 



f 



[seal of wax] By the Honourable Sir William Johnson 
Baronet, His Majesty's sole agent and super- 
intendent of the affairs of the Northern In- 
dians of North America, Colony of the six 
United Nations their allies and dependants 
&c. &c. &c. 

To OGemawnee a Chief of the Menomings Nation : 

Whereas I have received from the officers who Commanded 
the Out posts as well as from other persons an account of your 
good behaviour last year in protecting the Officers, Soldiers &c. 
of the Garrison of La Bay, and in escorting them down to Mon- 
treal as also the I^ffects of the Traders to a large amount, and 
your having likewise entered into the strongest Engagements 
of Friendship with the English before me at this place. I do 
therefore give you This Testimony of my Esteem for your Ser- 
vices and Good behaviour. 

Given under my hand & Seal at Arms at 
Niagara the first day of August 1764. 

W™. Johnson. 



96 

This piece of paper, which showed that he was a 
good friend of the Enghsh, was of almost as great 
importance to Ogemaunee as a patent of nobility in the 
Old World. He carried it with him back to Wisconsin, 
and it remained in his family from one generation to 
another, for fully a hundred years. One day a blank- 
eted and painted descendant of Ogemaunee presented 
it to an American officer who visited his wigwam. This 
descendant, doubtless, knew Httle of its meaning, but 
it had been used in his family as a charm for bringing 
good luck, and in his admiration for this kind officer 
he gave it to him, for the Indian is, by nature, grate- 
ful and generous. In the course of years the paper 
was presented to the State Historical Society, by w^hich 
it is preserved as an interesting and suggestive relic 
of those early days of the English occupation of Wis- 
consin. 



WISCONSIN IN THE REVOLUTIONARY 
WAR 

WE ordinarily think of the Revolutionary War as 
having been fought wholly upon the Atlantic 
slope. As a matter of fact, there were enacted west of 
the AUeghanies, during that great struggle, deeds which 
proved of immense importance to the welfare of the 
United States. Had it not been for the capture from 
the British of the country northwest of the Ohio River 
by the gallant Virginia colonel, George Rogers Clark, 
it is fair to assume that the Old Northwest, as it came 
to be called, the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 
nois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, would to-day be a part 
of the Dominion of Canada. 

After the brief flurry of the Pontiac conspiracy (1763), 
the Indians of the Old Northwest became good friends 
of the British, whose aim was to encourage the fur 
trade and to keep the savages good-natured. The Eng- 
lish have always been more successful in their treatment 
of Indians than have Americans ; they are more gener- 
ous with them, and while not less firm than we, they 
are more considerate of savage wants. The French 
and the half-breeds, too, were very soon the warm sup- 
porters of British policy, because EngUsh fur trade 

STO. OF BADGER STA. — 7 97 



98 

companies gave them abundant employment, and 
evinced no desire other than to foster the primitive 
conditions under which the fur trade prospered. 

The English were not desirous of settHng the West- 
ern wilderness with farmers, thereby driving out the 
game. Our people, however, have always been of a 
land-grabbing temper; we have sought to beat down 
the walls of savagery, to push settlement, to cut down 
the forests, to plow the land, to drive the Indian out. 
This meant the death of the fur trade ; hence it is 
small wonder that, when the Revolutionary War broke 
out, the French and Indians of the Northwest upheld 
the British and opposed the Americans. 

A number of scattered white settlers and a few small 
villages had appeared along the Ohio River and many 
of its southern tributaries. In Kentucky there were 
several log forts, around each of which were grouped 
the rude cabins of frontiersmen, who were half farmers 
and half hunters, tall, stalwart fellows, as courageous 
as lions, and ever on the alert for the crouching Indian 
foe, who came when least expected. The country north- 
west of the Ohio River was then a part of the British 
province of Quebec. Here and there in this Old North- 
west, as we now call it, were small villages of French 
and half-breed fur traders, each village protected by a 
little log fort ; some of these villages were garrisoned 
by a handful of British soldiers, and others only by 
French Canadians who were friendly to the English. 
Such were Vincennes, in what is now Indiana ; Kas- 
kaskia and Cahokia, in the Illinois country ; Prairie du 
Chien and Green Bay, in Wisconsin ; and Mackinac 



99 

Island and Detroit, in Michigan. Detroit was the head- 
quarters, where lived the British lieutenant governor of 
the Northwest, Henry Hamilton, a bold, brave, untiring, 
unscrupulous man. 

Hamilton's chief business was to gather about him the 
Indians of the Northwest, and to excite in them hatred 
of the American settlers in Kentucky. In 1777, war 
parties sent out by him from Detroit, under cover of the 
forts of Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and Cahokia, swept Ken- 
tucky from end to end, and the whole American fron- 
tier was the scene of a frightful panic. The American 
backwoodsmen were ambushed, many of the block- 
house posts were burned, prisoners were subjected to 
nameless horrors, and it seemed as if pandemonium had 
broken loose. By the close of the year, such had been 
the rush of settlers back to their old homes, east of the 
mountains, that but five or six hundred frontiersmen 
remained in all Kentucky. Had the British and the 
Indians succeeded in driving back all of the settlers, 
they would have held the whole interior of the conti- 
nent, and the American republic might never have been 
permitted to grow beyond the AUeghanies and the Blue 
Ridge ; hemmed in to the Atlantic slope, this could 
never have become the great nation it is today. 

Prominent among the defenders of Kentucky in 1777 
was George Rogers Clark. He was but twenty-five 
years of age, had come from a good family in Virginia, 
and had a fair education for that day, but had been a 
wood rover from childhood. He was tall and com- 
manding in person, a great hunter, and a backwoods 
land surveyor, such as Washington was. With chain 



100 



and compass, ax and rifle, he had, in the employ of land 
speculators, wandered far and wide through the border 
region, knowing its trails, its forts, its mountain passes, 
and its aborigines better than he knew his books. As- 
sociated with him were Boone, Benjamin Logan, and 
others who were prominent among American border 
heroes. 

Clark saw that the best way to defend Kentucky was 
to strike the enemy in their own country. Gaining 
permission from Patrick Henry, governor of Virginia, 
for Kentucky was then but a county of Virginia, and 
obtaining some small assistance in money, he raised, in 
1778, a little army of a hundred fifty backwoodsmen, 
clad in buckskin and homespun, who came from the 
hunters' camps of the Alleghanies. The men collected 
at Pittsburg and Wheeling, and in flatboats cautiously 
descended the Ohio to the falls, where is now the city 
of Louisville. Here, on an island, they built a fort as 
a military base, and the strongest of the party pushed 
on down the river to the abandoned old French Fort 
Massac, ten miles below the mouth of the Tennessee, 
from which they marched overland, for a hundred 
twenty miles, to Kaskaskia in western Illinois. 

Capturing Kaskaskia by surprise (July 4), and soon 
gaining the good will of the French there, Clark sent 
out messengers who easily won over the neighboring 
Cahokia ; and very soon even Vincennes, on the Wabash 
River, sent in its submission. It was not long before 
Hamilton, at Detroit, heard the humiliating news. He 
at once sent out two French agents, Charles de Lang- 
lade and Charles Gautier, of Green Bay, to raise a 



lOI 

large war party of Wisconsin Indians. They succeeded 
so well, that Hamilton set out from Detroit in October, 
to retake Vincennes. His force consisted of nearly two 
hundred whites (chiefly French) and three hundred 
Indians, Such were the obstacles to overcome in an 
unbroken wilderness, that he was seventy-one days in 
reaching his destination. Clark had left but two of his 
soldiers at Vincennes, and as their French allies at 
once surrendered, there was nothing to do but to give 
up the place. 

Now came one of the most stirring deeds in our West- 
ern history. Clark, at Kaskaskia, soon learned of the 
loss of Vincennes ; at the same time, it was told him 
that the greater part of Hamilton's expedition had dis- 
banded for the winter, the lieutenant governor intending 
to launch a still larger war party against him in the 
spring. Thereupon Clark determined not to await an 
attack, but himself to make an attack on Hamilton, 
who had remained in charge of Vincennes. 

The distance across country, from Kaskaskia to Vin- 
cennes, is about two hundred thirty miles. In sum- 
mer it was a dehghtful region of alternating groves and 
prairies ; in the dead of winter, it would afford fair 
traveling over the frozen plains and ice-bound rivers ; 
but now, in February (1779), the weather had moder- 
ated, and great freshets had flooded the lowlands and 
meadows. The ground was boggy, and progress was 
slow and difficult ; there were no tents, and the floods 
had driven away much of the game ; and Clark and his 
officers were often taxed to their wits' ends to devise 
methods for keeping their hard-worked men in good 



102 



spirits. Often they were obliged to wade in the icy 
water, for miles together, and to sleep at night in 
soaked clothes upon little brush-strewn hillocks, shiv- 
ering with cold, and without food or fire. 




But at last, after 
nearly three weeks of almost superhuman 
exertion and indescribable misery, Vincennes was 
reached. The British garrison was taken by surprise, 
but held out with obstinacy, and throughout the long 
moonlight night the battle raged with much fury. The 
log fort was on the top of a hill overlooking the little 
town; it was armed with several small cannon, but 
Clark's men had only their muskets. They were, 
however, served freely with ammunition by the French 
villagers ; and, being expert marksmen, could hit the 
gunners by firing through the loopholes, so that by 
sunrise the garrison was sadly crippled. The fight 



103 

continued throughout the following morning, and in 
the afternoon the British ran up the white flag. Ham- 
ilton and twenty-six of his fellows were sent as pris- 
oners overland to Virginia. 

Clark remained as master of the Northwest until the 
close of the Revolutionary War. The fact that the flag 
of the republic waved over Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and 
Cahokia when the war ended, had much to do with the 
decision of the peace commissioners to allow the United 
States to retain the country lying between the Ohio and 
Mississippi rivers and the Great Lakes. 

During the Revolution, none of the forts in Wisconsin 
were occupied by British soldiers, and they were allowed 
to tumble into decay. Wisconsin was, however, used as 
a recruiting ground for Indian allies. Not only did 
Langlade and Gautier raise a war party of Wisconsin 
Indians to help Hamilton in his expedition against 
Vincennes, but they were frequently in Wisconsin on 
similar business during the war. In 1779 Gautier led 
a party of Wisconsin Indians to Peoria, in the lUinois 
country, where there was an old French fort which, 
it was thought, might fall into the hands of the 
Americans. Gautier burned this fort, and then hastily 
retreated because he found that Clark was making 
friends with all the Illinois Indians. 

Clark's agents traded as far north as Portage, in 
Wisconsin. At Prairie du Chien they induced Linctot, 
a famous French fur trader, to join the Americans. 
Linctot put himself at the head of a party of five 
hundred French and half-breed horsemen, who were 
of much assistance to Clark in his various movements 



IG4 

after the capture of Vincennes. Meanwhile another 
large party, chiefly of Indians, assembled at Prairie 
du Chien in the British cause, led by three French 
traders, Hesse, Du Charme, and Calve. They raided 
the upper Mississippi valley, capturing provisions in- 
tended for the Americans, and making a futile attack 
on the Spanish village of St. Louis, which was thought 
to be assisting Clark. 

Despite these military operations in Wisconsin, the 
English fur trade continued in full strength, with head- 
quarters upon the Island of Mackinac, but with French 
agents and boatmen, whose principal dwelling places 
were at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. Upon Lake 
Superior large canoes and bateaux were used ; but 
upon Lake Michigan were three small sloops, the 
Welcome, the Felicity, and the Archangel, which car- 
ried supplies and furs for the traders, and made fre- 
quent cruises to see that the *' Bostonians," as the 
French used to call the Americans, obtained no foot- 
hold upon the shore of the lake. 

Just before the close of the war, the British com- 
mander at Mackinac Island, Captain Patrick Sinclair, 
held a council with the Indians, and for a small sum 
purchased for himself their claims to that island and to 
nearly all of the land now comprising Wisconsin. ' But 
the treaty of 1783, between the British and the Amer- 
icans, did not recognize this purchase, and Sinclair 
found that he was no longer the owner of Wisconsin. 
It had become, largely through the valor of Clark, and 
the persistence of our treaty commissioners, a part 
of the territory of the United States. 



THE RULE OF JUDGE REAUME 

BY the treaty of peace with Great Britain, in 1783, the 
country northwest of the Ohio River was declared 
to be a part of the territory of the United States ; but 
it was many years before the Americans had anything 
more than a nominal control of Wisconsin, which was 
a part of this Northwestern region. The United States 
was at first unable to meet all of its obligations under 
this treaty ; hence Great Britain kept possession of the 
old fur trade posts on the Upper Lakes, including 
Mackinac, of which Wisconsin was a "dependency." 
A British garrison was kept at Mackinac, thus con- 
trolling the fur trade of this district, but no troops were 
deemed necessary within Wisconsin itself. 

To the few white inhabitants of the small fur trade 
villages of Green Bay and Prairie du Chien, there was 
slight evidence of any of these various changes in politi- 
cal ownership. Beyond the brief stay among them of 
Lieutenant Gorrell and his little band of redcoats, in 
the years 1761-63, the French and half-breeds of Wis- 
consin led much the same life as of old. 

In 1780, an English fur trader, John Long, passed up 
the Fox River and dow^n the Wisconsin, and bought up 
a great many furs in this region. Some years later 

105 



io6 

he wrote a book about his travels, and from this we 
get a very good idea of Hfe among the French and 
Indians of the Northwest. Long was at Green Bay 
for several days, and tells us that the houses there 
were covered with birch bark, and the rooms were 
decorated with bows and arrows, guns, and spears. 
There were in the village not over fifty whites, divided 
into six or seven families. The men were for the 
most part engaged as assistants to the two or three 
leading traders ; they spent their winters in the woods, 
picking up furs at the Indian camps, and in sum- 
mer cultivated their narrow strips of gardens which 
ran down to the river's edge. It mattered little to 
them who was their political master, so long as they 
were left to enjoy their simple lives in their own 
fashion. 

To this primitive community there came one day, in 
1803, a portly, pompous, bald headed little Frenchman, 
named Charles Reaume. Wisconsin was then a part of 
Indiana Territory, of which William Henry Harrison 
was governor. It was for the most part a wilderness ; 
dense woods and tenantless prairies extended all the 
way from the narrow clearing at Green Bay to the 
little settlement at Prairie du Chien. There were small 
clearings at Portage, Milwaukee, and one or two other 
fur trading posts. There was no civil government here, 
and the few white people in all this vast stretch of 
country practically made their own laws, each man 
being judge and jury for himself, so long as he did 
not interfere with other people's rights. 

Reaume bore a commission from Governor Harrison, 



lo; 

appointing liim justice of the peace at Green Bay, 
which meant nearly all of the country west of Lake 
Michigan. Thus "Judge Reaume," as he was called, 
was the only civil officer in Wisconsin, and although 
apparently never reappointed, he retained this distinc- 
tion by popular consent until after the War of i8 12-15 j 
indeed, for several years after that, he was the prin- 
cipal officer of justice in these parts. 

The judge was a good-hearted man, when one pene- 
trated beneath the crust of official pomposity with 
which he was generally enveloped. He appears to 
have owned a volume of Blackstone, but the only law 
he understood or practiced was the old " Law of 
Paris," which had governed Canada from the earliest 
time, and which still rules in the Province of Quebec, 
and it is related that he knew little of that. His deci- 
sions were arbitrary, but were generally based on the 
right as he saw it, quite regardless of the technicalities 
of the law. 

A great many queer stories are told of old Judge 
Reaume. He loved display after his simple fashion, 
and invented for himself an official uniform, which he 
wore on all public occasions. This consisted of a scar- 
let frock coat faced with white silk, and gay with span- 
gled buttons ; it can still be seen in the museum of 
the State Historical Society. He issued few warrants 
or subpoenas; it is told of him that whenever he wanted 
a person to appear before him, either as witness or 
principal, he sent to that person the constable, bearing 
his honor's well-known large jackknife, which w^as quite 
as effectual as the king's signet ring of olden days. 



io8 



Quite often did he adjudge guilty both' complainant 
and defendant, obliging them both to pay a fine, or to 
work so many days in his garden; and sometimes both 
were acquitted, the constable being ordered to pay the 
costs. It is even said that the present of a bottle of 
whisky to the judge was sufficient to insure a favor- 
able decision. The story is 
told that once, when the 
ludge had actually ren- 
dered a decision in a 
certain case, the per- 
son decided against 
presented the court 
with a new coffee-pot, 
whereupon the judg- 
ment was reversed. 

There may be some 
exaggeration in these 
tales of the earliest 
judge in Wisconsin, but 
they appear to be in the 
main substantiated. Never- 
theless, although there doubtless 
was some grumbling, it speaks well for the old justice 
of the peace, and for the orderly good nature of this 
little French community without a jail, that no one ap- 
pears ever to have questioned the legality of Reaume's 
decisions. These were strictly abided by, and although 
he was never reappointed, he held office under both 
American and British sway, simply because no one was 
sent to succeed him. 




Not only was Reaume Wisconsin's judge and jury 
during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, 
but as there was, during much of his time, no priest 
hereabouts, he drew up marriage contracts, and mar- 
ried and divorced people at will, issued baptismal cer- 
tificates, and kept a registry of births and deaths. 
He certified alike to British and American military com- 
missions ; drew up contracts between the fur traders 
and their employees; wrote letters for the habitants; 
and performed for the settlers all those functions of 
Church and state for which we now require a long Hst 
of officials and professional men. He was a picturesque 
and important functionary, illustrating in his person the 
simple fashions and modest desires of the French who 
first settled this State. We are now a wealthier people, 
but certainly there have never been happier times in 
Wisconsin, all things considered, than in the primitive 
days of old Judge Reaume and his official jackknife. 



THE BRITISH CAPTURE PRAIRIE DU 
CHIEN 

ALTHOUGH the Northwest was obtained for the 
United States by the treaty with Great Britain in 
1783, the fur trade posts on the Upper Great Lakes 
were openly held by the mother country until the new 
republic could fully meet its financial obligations to her. 
After thirteen years, a new treaty (1796) officially recog- 
nized American supremacy. Nevertheless, for another 
thirteen years English fur traders were practically in 
possession of Wisconsin, operating through French 
Canadian and half-breed agents, clerks, and voyageiirs, 
until John Jacob Astor (1809) organized the American 
Fur Company, and English fur traders were forbidden 
to operate here. 

The military officers in Canada were firmly convinced 
that the Americans could not long hold the Northwest. 
They believed that some day there would be another 
war, and the country would once more become the 
property of Great Britain. Therefore they sought to 
keep on good terms with our Indians and French, giving 
them presents and employment. 

Thus, when our second war with Great Britain did 
break out, in 1812, nearly all the people living in Wis- 
consin, and elsewhere in the wild northern parts of the 



Ill 

Northwest, were strong friends of the British cause. 
To them the issue was very clear. British victory 
meant the perpetuation of old times and old methods, 
so dear to them and to their ancestors before them. 
American victory meant the cutting down of the for- 
ests, the death knell of the fur trade, and the coming of 
a swarm of strange people, heretofore almost unknown 
to Wisconsin. These people had been described to 
them as an uneasy, selfish, land grabbing folk, who 
knew not how to enjoy themselves, and were for turn- 
ing the world upside down with their Yankee notions. 
Naturally, the easy-going, comfort loving Wisconsin 
French looked upon their coming with great alarm. 

The principal event of the war in Wisconsin was 
the capture of Prairie du Chien by the British, in 1814. 
Wisconsin was then a part of Illinois Territory, and 
west of the Mississippi River lay the enormous Mis- 
souri Territory. General William Clark, a younger 
brother of George Rogers Clark, was governor of Mis- 
souri Territory, and had in charge the conduct of mili- 
tary operations along the Upper Mississippi River. 

Governor Clark had heard that the British, by this 
time strongly intrenched on Mackinac Island, intended 
to send an expedition up the Fox River and down the 
Wisconsin, to seize upon Prairie du Chien, which had 
not been fortified since the old French days. Clark 
recognized that the power that held Prairie du Chien 
practically held the entire Upper Mississippi River, and 
controlled the Indians and the fur trade of a vast resrion. 
Accordingly, early in June (1814) he ascended the river 
from his headquarters at St. Louis, with three hundred 



112 

men in six or eight large boats, including a bullet-proof 
keel boat, and erected a stockade on the summit of a 
large Indian mound which lay on the bank of the Mis- 
sissippi a mile or two above the mouth of the Wiscon- 
sin. The name given to this stockade was Fort Shelby. 
Lieutenant Joseph Perkins was left in charge of the gar- 
rison, which was divided between the fort and the keel 
boat, the latter being anchored out in the Mississippi. 

The British expedition from Mackinac had been 
greatly delayed. During the preceding autumn, Rob- 
ert Dickson, an English fur trader, had been engaged 
in recruiting a large band of Indians in the neighbor- 
hood of Green Bay, and with them intended to occupy 
Prairie du Chien. But the Indians were evidently 
afraid to fight the Americans, and delayed Dickson so 
that the canoes of his party were caught in the ice on 
Lake Winnebago (December, 1813), and he was obliged 
to go into winter quarters on Island Park (known to 
the white pioneers as Garlic Island). 

Poor Dickson had a sorry time with his war party. 
As soon as it was learned that provisions were being 
freely given out at this island camp, Indians from long 
distances came to visit him, under pretense of enlist- 
ing under the banner of the British chief. Councils 
innumerable were held, presents and food had to be 
given the visitors continually, and Dickson was put to 
sore straits to keep them satisfied. He found it impos- 
sible to get sufficient supplies from British headquarters 
on Mackinac Island, and was being severely criticised 
by the officers there, for his exorbitant demands upon 
them. Nevertheless, unless he kept his Indians good- 



113 

natured, they would promptly desert him. He was, 
therefore, forced to rely upon the French of Green Bay 
for what food he needed. This came grudgingly, and 
at so high prices that Dickson roundly scolded the 
Green Bay people, and promised to report them for 
punishment to the British king, for daring to take 
advantage of his Majesty's necessities. 

While Dickson was thus engaged in Lake Winne- 
bago, a British captain was drilling a number of 
young Frenchmen at Green Bay, and trying to make 
soldiers of them ; at Mackinac, a similar work was 
being done among the voyagcnrs by the two leading 
fur traders of Prairie du Chien, Brisbois and Rolette. 
On the other hand, at Prairie du Chien, the American 
Indian agent, Boilvin, was issuing circulars calling on 
the people to claim American protection before it was 
too late. 

Late in June the leaders of the expedition started 
from Mackinac, under the command of Major William 
McKay, and at Green Bay, Lake Winnebago, and Por- 
tage picked up various parties of French and Indians. 
These bands were much reduced from those who had 
been so liberally maintained during the winter, for 
most of the Indians were anxious to keep away from 
the fighting until it should be evident which side would 
win, and many of the French were of the same mind. 
By the time Fox River had been ascended by the fleet 
of canoes, and the descent of the Wisconsin begun, the 
allied forces consisted of but a hundred twenty whites 
and four hundred fifty Indians. All of the latter, ac- 
cording to McKay's report, proved " perfectly useless." 

STO. OF BADGER STA. — 5 



114 

On the 17th of July, the British war party landed 
at Prairie du Chien, to find the Americans, some sixty 
or seventy strong, protected by a stockade and two 
blockhouses, on which were mounted six small can- 
non. In the river, the keel boat contained perhaps 
seventy-five men and fourteen cannon. The British 
had, besides their muskets, only a three-pounder, and 
the situation did not look promising. 

Perkins was summoned to surrender, but he declared 
that he would*" defend to the last man." For two days 
there was a rather lively discharge of firearms on both 
sides. Apparently, the British were the better gun- 
ners ; their cannonading soon forced the men on the 
keel boat to desert their comrades on shore, and McKay 
then centered his attention on the fort. The Indians 
were unruly, being principally engaged in plundering 
the Frenchmen's houses in the village. The British 
supply of ammunition had quite run out by the evening 
of the 9th, and McKay was seriously contemplating a 
retreat, when he was surprised to see a white flag put 
out by the garrison. 

It appears that the stock of food had become ex- 
hausted in the fort, and Perkins had formed an exag- 
gerated idea of the strength of the invaders. The 
British guaranteed that the Americans should march 
out of Fort Shelby at eight o'clock in the morning 
of the 20th, with colors flying and with the honors of 
war, and that the Indians should be prevented from 
maltreating them. This last agreement McKay found 
it very difficult to carry out, for the savages wished, as 
usual, to massacre the prisoners. To the honor of the 



115 



British, it should be recorded that they exercised great 
vigilance, and spared neither supplications nor threats, 
to insure the safety 
of their prisoners, 
whom they soon sent 
down the river to 
the American post 
at St. Louis. 

When the British 
flag was run up on 
the stockade, the 
name was changed 
to Fort McKay, in 
honor of the Brit- 
ish leader. During 
the long autumn and sue- -^ 
ceeding winter, the l^ritish e'xpe- ^itj 
rienced their old difficulties with the 
Indian allies. The warriors sacked 
the houses of the French settlers, all 
over the prairie, and destroyed crops and 
supplies. Council after council was held at Fort ^^ 
McKay, and large bands of lazy, quarrelsome savages, 
encamped about the fort, were fed and were loaded 
with presents ; altogether, the occupation of Wisconsin 
proved an expensive luxury. It was no doubt with 
some relief that the British garrison at last learned, 
late in May 1815, of the treaty of peace signed on 
the previous 24th of December, and made arrange- 
ments to withdraw up the Wisconsin and down the 
Fox, and across the great lake to Mackinac. 




ii6 

In point of fact, the withdrawal of Captain Bulger, at 
that time in charge of Fort McKay, was in reality a 
hasty and undignified retreat from his own allies. The 
Indians had learned with amazement that the British 
palefaces were going to surrender to the American 
palefaces, without showing fight, and simply because 
somewhere, far away in another part of the world, some 
other palefaces, whom these Englishmen had never 
even seen, had held a peace council and buried the 
hatchet. This sort of thing could not be understood by 
the savages encamped outside the walls of Fort McKay, 
save as an evidence of rank cowardice. They called the 
redcoats a lot of '* old women," became insolent, and 
even threatened them. 

Captain Bulger saw that it would not do to await the 
arrival of the American troops from St. Louis, so he 
sent an Indian messenger with a letter to the American 
commander, telling him to help himself to everything in 
Fort McKay, Then, only forty-eight hours after the 
arrival of the peace news, he pulled down his flag and 
hurried home as fast as he could, fearful all the way 
that an Indian war party might be at his heels. Thus 
ignominiously ended the last British occupation of Wis- 
consin. 



THE STORY OF THE WISCONSIN LEAD 
MINES 

IT was the fur trade that first brought white men to 
Wisconsin. The daring Nicolet pushed his way 
through the wilderness, a thousand miles west of the 
little French settlement at Quebec, solely to introduce 
the traffic in furs to our savages, and others were not 
long in following him. Soon it was learned that there 
were lead mines in what is now southwest Wisconsin. 

It is not probable that the aborigines, before the 
coming of white men, made any other use of lead 
than from it to fashion a few rude ornaments. But 
the French at once recognized the great value of this 
mineral, in connection with the fur trade. They taught 
the Indians how to mine it in a crude fashion, and to 
make it into bullets for the guns which they introduced 
among them. 

The French traders themselves mined a good deal of 
it for their own use, and shipped it in their canoes to 
other parts of the West, where there were no lead 
mines, but where both white men and Indians needed 
bullets. For in a remarkably short period nearly all 
the Indians had turned from their old pursuits of rais- 
ing maize and pumpkins, and killing just enough game 

117 



ii8 

with slings and arrows to supply themselves with skins 
for their clothing and flesh for their food. They had 
now become persistent hunters for skins, which they 
might exchange with white men for European-made 
guns, ammunition, kettles, spears, cloths, and ornaments. 

Some of the Indians in the neighborhood of the 
lead mines found it more profitable to mine lead for 
other hunters, than to hunt; hence we find that, at 
an early date, the mines came to be regarded as the 
particular property of the Indians, a fact which had 
considerable influence upon the history of the region. 
With the French, most of our Wisconsin Indians were 
quite friendly. The French were kind and obliging, 
often married and settled among them, and had no 
thought of driving them away. They throve upon the 
fur trade with the Indians, and in general did not care 
to become farmers. The English and the Americans, 
on the contrary, felt a contempt for the savages, and 
did not disguise it ; the aim of the Americans, in par- 
ticular, was gradually to clear the forest, to make farms, 
and to build villages. In the American scheme of civ- 
ilization the Indian had no part. Therefore we find 
that Frenchmen were quite free to work the lead mines 
in company with the savages ; but the Anglo-Saxons, 
when they arrived on the scene, were obHged to fight 
for this right. In the end they banished the Indians 
from the ''diggings." 

Marquette and Joliet had heard of the lead mines, 
and of the Frenchmen working at them, when they made 
their famous canoe trip through Wisconsin, in 1673. 
Through the rest of the seventeenth century, wherever 



I r 



we pick up any French books of travel in these regions, 
or any maps of the Upper Mississippi country, we are 
sure to find frequent, though rather vague, mention of 
the lead mines. 

The first official exploration of them appears to have 
been made in 1693 by Le Sueur, the French military 
commandant at Chequamegon Bay, on Lake Superior. 
He was so impressed by the " mines of lead, copper, 
and blue and green earth " which he found all along 
the banks of the Upper Mississippi, that he went to 
France to tell the king about his great discoveries, and 
seek permission to work them. It was forbidden to 
do anything in New France without the consent of the 
great French king, although the free and independent 
fur traders did very much as they pleased out here in 
the wilderness. But Le Sueur was a soldier, and had 
to ask permission. Obtaining it, he returned at great 
expense with thirty miners, who proceeded up the 
Mississippi from New Orleans ; but somehow nothing 
came of these extensive preparations. 

Several French speculators, in succeeding years, 
thought to make money out of supposed mines of gold, 
silver, lead, and copper along the upper waters of the 
Mississippi. Some of them came over from France 
with\ bands of miners and little companies of soldiers 
to guard them ; but, like Le Sueur, they spent most of 
their time and money in exploration, not content with 
those lead mines that were well known to exist, and 
invariably left the country in disgust, their money and 
patience exhausted. Now and then a more practical 
man came quietly upon the scene, and seemed well 



I20 

satisfied witii lead when he could not find gold ; most 
of such miners were French, but a few were Spanish, 
for Spain then owned all the country lying westward 
of the Mississippi River. 

Occasionally the French commandant at Mackinac 
or Detroit would come to the mines, and with the aid 
of his soldiers and the Indians, get out a considerable 
quantity of the ore, and take it home with him in his 
fleet of canoes ; or a fur trader would do the same, for 
the purposes of his own trade with the savages. The 
little French village of Ste. Genevieve, near St. Louis, 
had become, by the opening of our Revolutionary War, 
a considerable lead market, from which shipments were 
made in flatboats and bateaux down the Mississippi to 
New Orleans, or up the Ohio to Pittsburg. Lead was, 
next to peltries, the most important export of the Upper 
Mississippi region, and throughout the Vyest served as 
currency. 

During the Revolutionary War, the British were at 
first in command of the upper reaches of the great 
river, and guarded jealously the approach to the lead 
mines, for bullets were necessary to the success of the 
fast growing Kentucky settlements ; American military 
operations against the little British garrisons at Vin- 
cennes, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Detroit would be 
powerless without lead. Gradually the influence of 
the American fur trade grew among the Indians, and 
it was not long before the Americans in the West were 
able to obtain through them all the lead they wanted. 

Toward the close of the war, Julien Dubuque, a very 
energetic French miner, bought up large claims from 



121 

the Spaniards, in Missouri and Iowa, and for about a 
quarter of a century was the principal man in the lead 
region. He was remarkably successful in dealing with 
the Indians, whom he employed to do the principal 
work. His mining and trading operations were not 
confined to the Spanish side of the river, but were car- 
ried on in American territory as well, and his influence 
with the savages for a time prevented American miners 
and fur traders from obtaining a foothold. 

When at last (1804) the United States obtained pos- 
session of the lands west of the Mississippi, numerous 
enterprising Americans forced their way into the lead 
district. They managed to mine a good deal of the 
metal, here and there, but frequently met with armed 
opposition from the Indians. It was fifteen years 
before the Americans equaled the French Canadians 
in number. In 18 19, the Indian claims to the mining 
country having at last been purchased by the federal 
government, there was a general inrush of Americans. 
Among the earliest and most prominent of these was 
James W. Shull, the founder of Shullsburg, in Iowa 
county. Another man of note was Colonel James John- 
son, of Kentucky, who brought negro slaves into the 
region, to do his heaviest labor, and maintained a fleet 
of flatboats to carry lead ore from Galena River to 
St. Louis, New Orleans, and Pittsburg. 

At first the operations of Johnson, Shull, and others 
had to be carried on under military protection ; for 
the Indians, although they had sold their claims, per- 
sisted in annoying the newcomers, being urged on by 
the French miners and traders who were still numer- 



122 

ous in the mining country. But so soon as the news 
spread that a" large trade in lead was fast springing 
up, other Americans began to pour in ; mining claims 
were entered in great numbers, a federal land office was 
opened, and by 1826 two thousand men, including negro 
slaves brought in by Kentucky and Missouri operators, 
were engaged in and about the mines. The follow- 
ing year the town of Galena was founded, and in 1829 
there was a stampede thither. 

Henceforth, for many years, the lead trade of south- 
western Wisconsin, northwestern Illinois, and parts of 
Missouri and Iowa was the chief interest in the West. 
By this time the fur trade had almost died out, and 
the old French Canadian element had become but a 
small proportion of the population of the Mississippi 
valley. In those days, Galena, Mineral Point, and 
other lead mining towns were of much more importance 
than Chicago or Milwaukee, and their citizens enter- 
tained high hopes of the future. The lead trade with 
St. Louis and New Orleans was very large ; but the 
East also wanted the lead, and the air was filled with 
projects to secure routes by which lead might be car- 
ried to vessels plying on the Great Lakes, which could 
transport it to Buffalo and other far away ports. 

For a time the most popular of these projects was 
the old fur trade route of the Wisconsin and Fox rivers. 
A canal was dug along the famous carrying trail at 
Portage, and the federal government was induced to 
deepen Fox River, which is naturally very shallow, and 
to attempt to create a permanent channel in the Wis- 
consin River. But, although much money has been 



123 



spent on these schemes, from that day to this, the Fox- 
Wisconsin route is still impracticable save to boats of 
exceptionally light draft ; and in our time the project 
of connecting the Mississippi River with Lake Michi- 
gan, by the way of Portage and Green Bay, is almost 
wholly abandoned. Another scheme was the proposed 
Milwaukee and Rock River canal, by which Milwaukee 
was to be connected with the Rock River, which joins 
the Mississippi at Rock Island ; but this plan died a 
still earlier death. It was the struggle to connect the 
port of Milwaukee with the lead region that ; 
finally led to the building of the railroad ^' 
between that city and Prairie du Chien , 

Moie immediately effective for the \A\v|u''l|// 

benefit of the lead trade, was the 
opening of a wagon road _ 
from the lead mining 




towns, through Madison, to Milwaukee, along which 
great canvas-covered caravans of ore-laden '' prairie 
schooners " toiled slowly from the mines to the Lake 
Michigan docks, a distance of about a hundred and 



124 

fifty miles. Other roads led to Galena and Prairie 
du Chien, where the Mississippi River boats awaited 
similar fleets of " schooners " from the interior. A 
good deal of the lead was sent by similar conveyances 
to Helena, a little village on the Wisconsin River, 
where a shot tower had been built against the face of a 
high cliff; from here, shallow-draft boats took the shot 
to Green Bay, by way of the Portage Canal and Fox 
River, or descended the Wisconsin to Prairie du Chien. 

From various causes, the lead trade of the Upper 
Mississippi region had sadly declined by 1857. Among 
these causes w^as the finding of gold in California 
(1849), which attracted large numbers of the miners 
to a more profitable field ; again, the surface or shal- 
low diggings having been exhausted, much more capi- 
tal was required to operate in the lower levels ; more 
serious was the lack of sufficient transportation facili- 
ties, and these did not come until the great silver 
mines of the Rocky Mountains had been opened, lead 
being thenceforth more profitably produced in connec- 
tion with silver. 

The effect of the lead industry upon the development 
of Wisconsin was important. Many years before farm- 
ers would naturally have sought southern Wisconsin in 
their pushing westward for fresh lands, the opening of 
the mines brought thither a large and energetic indus- 
trial population, and a considerable capital, and awak- 
ened poi^uiar interest in land and water transportation 
routes. 



THE WINNEBAGO WAR 

THE world over, white men, representing a higher 
type of civihzation, have wrested, or are still wrest- 
ing, the land from the original savage occupants. This 
seems to be inevitable. It is one of the means by 
which civilization is being extended over the entire 
globe. We glory in the progress of civilization ; but we 
are apt to ignore the hardship which this brings to the 
aborigines. While not relaxing our endeavor to plant 
the world with progressive men who shall make the 
most of life, we should see to it that the savage races 
are pushed to the wall with as kindly and forbearing a 
hand as possible ; that we apply to them humane 
methods, and give them credit for possessing the senti- 
ments of men who, Uke us, dearly love their old homes, 
and are willing to fight for them. These sentiments 
have certainly not often been applied in the past, by 
our Anglo-Saxon race, to the Indians of North America. 
We have failed to appreciate that the Indian, in being 
driven from his lands, has retaliated from motives of 
patriotism. His methods of fighting are often cruel 
and treacherous; but it must be remembered that he is 
in a stage of development akin to that of the child, and 
that white men upon the frontier have often been quite 
as cruel and treacherous toward the Indian as he was 

125 



126 

toward them, for such are ever the methods of the weak 
and the primitive. The Indian is blamed for his custom 
of wreaking vengeance upon all white men, when but 
an individual has injured him ; yet, on the border, it has 
always been seen that white men have retaliated on the 
Indians in exactly the same spirit. ''The only good 
Indian is a dead Indian," has been their motto, the 
offense of one Indian being considered the offense of 
all. Our dealings with the red men, both as individuals 
and as a nation, have, for over a hundred years, often 
been such as we should blush for. We are doing bet- 
ter now than formerly ; but our treatment of the weak 
and unfortunate aborigines is still far from being to 
our credit. 

The story of the Winnebago War, in Wisconsin, is 
illustrative of the old-time method of treating our bar- 
baric predecessors. No doubt it would have been better 
if the United States had, from the first, held all the 
Indians to be subjects, and forced them to obey our 
laws. But the tribes were considered in theory to be 
distinct nations, over whom we exercised supervision, 
and with whom we held treaties. This at first seemed 
necessary, owing to the patriarchal system among the 
Indians, by which heads of families or clans are sup- 
posed to control the younger members, all affairs 
• being decided upon in councils, in which these wise old 
men participate. It was thought that, through the 
chiefs, binding agreements could be made with entire 
tribes. It was not then generally understood that each 
Indian is, according to the customs of those people, 
really a law unto himself ; that the chiefs, in signing a 



127 

treaty, are seldom representative in the sense that we 
use the word, and that they generally represent no one 
but themselves ; that the only way in which they can 
commit their tribes is through the respect or fear which 
they may foster in the minds of their followers. 

In the month of August, 1825, when Wisconsin was 
still a part of Michigan Territory, there was a treaty 
signed at Prairie du Chien between the United States 
and the Indians of what are now Illinois, Wisconsin, 
and Minnesota. The treaty set boundaries between the 
quarrelsome tribes, and agreed on a general peace upon 
the border. Like most Indian treaties, this document 
was drawn up by the officers of the general govern- 
ment ; and the chiefs, knowing little of its contents, 
were simply invited to sign their names to it. They 
signed as requested, but went home in bad temper, 
because the American commissioners would not make 
them costly presents of guns, ammunition, beads, hatch- 
ets, cloths, and rum, as the British in Canada always 
did ; and the savages were not even allowed to cele- 
brate the treaty by a roistering feast. The Americans, 
from their cold, businesslike conduct, impressed the 
Indians as being " stingy old women." 

Nobody on the frontier, the following winter, seemed 
to pay the sHghtest attention to the terms of the treaty. 
The Sioux, who lived west of the Mississippi, the Win- 
nebagoes in southern and western Wisconsin, and the 
Chippewas in the north, quarreled with one another and 
scalped one another as freely as ever ; while French 
traders, in British employ, stirred up the red men, and 
told them that Great Britain would soon have the whole 



128 

country back again. The Winnebagoes, in particular, 
were irritated because two of their braves had been 
imprisoned for thieving, at Fort Crawford, in Prairie 
du Chien. They held numerous councils in the woods, 
and resolved to stand by the British when the war 
should break out. In the midst of this uneasiness, 
the troops at Fort Crawford were suddenly withdrawn 
to Fort Snelling, on the Upper Mississippi River, near 
where St. Paul now is. This was supposed by the 
Indians to mean that the American soldiers were afraid 
of them. 

The spring of 1827 arrived. A half-breed named 
Methode was making maple sugar upon the Yellow 
River, in Iowa, a dozen miles north of Prairie du Chien. 
With him were his wife and five children ; all were set 
upon by some Winnebagoes and killed, scalped, and 
burned. Naturally there was an uproar all along the 
Upper Mississippi. Excitement was at its height, when 
word was brought in by Sioux visitors to the village of 
Red Bird, a petty Winnebago chief, that the two men 
of his tribe who had been imprisoned in Fort Crawford 
had been hung when the troops reached Fort Snelling. 
The wily Sioux suggested vengeance. The Winnebago 
code was two lives for one. Inflamed with rage, Red 
Bird set out at once upon the warpath to take four 
white scalps. 

Meanwhile the clouds were gathering for a general 
storm. The American Indian agent at Prairie du Chien, 
with singular indiscretion, was not treating his Winne- 
bago visitors with kindness. English and French fur 
traders were, on behalf of Great Britain, making liberal 



29 



promises for the future. Winnebagoes were being 
brutally driven from the lead mines by the white min- 
ers, who were now swarming into southwest Wisconsin. 
The Sioux along the west bank of the Mississippi, in 
Minnesota, were encouraging the Winnebagoes to re- 
volt ; and were displaying z bad temper ^ ^^^ 
toward Americans, whom they thought 
cowardly because apparently unwilling 
to use military force to keep the In- 
dians in order. 

One day in June, Red Bird, a friend 
named Wekau, and two other Winne- 
bagoes, appeared at the door of a log 
cabin owned by Registre Gagnier, a 
French settler living on the edge of 
Prairie du Chien village. Gagnier w^as 
an old friend of Red Bird, and invited 
the four Indians in to take dinner with 
him and his family. For several hours 
the guests stayed, eating and smoking 
in apparent good humor, until at last 
their chance came. Gagnier and his 
serving man, Lipcap, were instantly shot 
down ; an infant of eighteen months was 
torn from the arms of Madame Gagnier, stabbed 
and scalped before her eyes, and thrown to the floor 
as dead ; but the woman herself with her little boy, 
ten years of age, escaped to the woods and gave the 
alarm to the neighbors. The Indians slunk into the 
forest and disappeared. The villagers buried Gagnier 
and Lipcap, and, finding the infant girl alive, restored 

STO. OF BADGER STA. - 9 




130 

her to her mother. Curiously enough, the scalped 
child recovered and grew to robust womanhood. 

According to the Winnebago code, four white scalps 
must be taken in return for the two Indians supposed 
to have been killed at Fort Snelling. Red Bird had 
now secured three, those of Gagnier, Lipcap, and the 
infant ; a fourth was necessary before he could properly 
return to his people in the capacity of an avenger, the 
proudest title which an Indian can bear. How he 
obtained these scalps was, to the mind of his race, 
unimportant; the one idea was to get them. 

On the afternoon of the third day after the massacre, 
Red Bird and his friends were visiting at a camp of 
their people, near the mouth of the Bad Ax River, some 
forty miles north of Prairie du Chien. A drunken 
feast was in progress, in honor of the scalp taking, 
when two keel boats appeared on their way down the 
Mississippi from Fort Snelling to St. Louis. The Sioux, 
at what is now Winona, had threatened the crews, but 
had not attempted to harm them. The Winnebagoes 
now appeared on the bank and raised the war whoop, 
but the crew of the foremost boat thought it only 
bluster, so in a spirit of bravado ran their craft toward 
shore. When it was within thirty yards of the bank, 
the Indians, led by Red Bird, poured a volley of rifle 
balls into the boat. The crew were well armed, and, 
rushing below, answered by shooting through the port- 
holes. The boat ran on a bar, and a sharp fire lasted 
through three hours, until dusk, when the craft was 
finally worked off the bar, and dropped downstream in 
the dark. Although seven hundred bullets penetrated 



131 

the hull, only two of the crew were killed outright, two 
others dying later from wounds, and two others were 
slightly wounded. The Indians lost seven killed and 
fourteen wounded. 

The *' battle of the keel boats" was the signal for 
military activity. In July a battalion of troops from 
Fort Snelling came down to Prairie du Chien ; and a 
Httle later a full regiment from St. Louis followed. 
General Henry Atkinson was in command, and early 
in August he ordered Major William Whistler, then in 
charge of Fort Howard, to proceed up Fox River with 
a company of troops, in search of the fugitives Red 
Bird and Wekau. At a council held with the Winne- 
bagoes, at Butte des Morts, the chiefs were notified 
that nothing short of the surrender of the leaders of 
the disturbance would satisfy the government for the 
attack on the boats ; were they not delivered up, the 
entire tribe should be hunted like wild animals. 

Great consternation prevailed among the tribesmen, 
as the runners sent out from the Butte des Morts 
council carried the terrible threat to all the camps of 
the Winnebagoes, in the deep forests, in the pleasant 
oak groves, and upon the broad prairies throughout 
southern Wisconsin. Whistler had reached the ridge 
flanking the old portage trail between the Fox and 
Wisconsin rivers, but had not fully completed the 
arrangements of his camp when an Indian runner ap- 
peared in hot haste, saying that Red Bird and Wekau 
would surrender themselves at three o'clock in the 
afternoon of the following day, that the tribe might be 
saved. 



132 

Whistler and his ofificers, as true soldiers, were 
prompt to appreciate bravery. They were broad 
enough to judge these savages by the standards of 
savagery, not by those of a civilization from which 
the Indian is removed by centuries of human progress. 
They knew full well that the culprits were but carrying 
out the law of their race in seeking white scalps in 
vengeance for the Winnebagoes supposed to have been 
slain at Fort Snelling. Whistler knew that the Indians 
considered Red Bird and Wekau as heroes, and could 
feel no pangs of conscience, because treachery toward 
enemies was the customary method of Indian warfare. 
Realizing these facts, the American officers recognized 
that it required a fine type of heroism on the part of 
these simple natives thus to offer themselves up to 
probable death, to redeem their tribe from destruction. 

For this reason the soldiers were brought out on 
parade ; and when, prompt to the hour named, Red 
Bird and Wekau, accompanied by a party of their 
friends, came marching into camp, clad in ceremonial 
dress, and singing their death songs, they were received 
with military honors. The native ceremony of surren- 
der was highly impressive. Red Bird conducted him- 
self with a dignity which won the admiration of all. 
Wekau, on the contrary, was an indifferent looking 
fellow, and commanded little respect. 

Red Bird made but one request, that, although sen- 
tenced to death, he should not be placed in chains. 
This was granted ; and while, during his subsequent 
imprisonment at Prairie du Chien, he had frequent op- 
portunities to escape, he declined to take advantage of 



133 



them. A few months later he fell an easy victim 

to an epidemic then raging in the village, thus jSt-- 

relieving the government from embarrassment, 

for it was felt that he was altogether 

too good an Indian to hang; indeed, 

his execution might have brought on 

a general border war. 

The murderers of Methode were 
also apprehended and given 
a death sentence ; but upon 
the Winnebagoes promis- 
ing to relinquish forever 
their hold upon the lead 
mines of southwestern 
Wisconsin and northwest- 
ern Illinois, President 
Adams pardoned all the 
prisoners then living. The 
following year (1828), a foit 
was erected at the Fox-Wisconsin portage, near the 
scene of Red Bird's surrender ; being in the heart of 
that tribe's territory, it was called Fort Winnebago. 
Thereafter the Winnebagoes were kept in entire sub- 
jection. Indeed, the three forts, Howard at Green 
Bay, Winnebago at Portage, and Crawford at Prairie 
du Chien, now gave the United States, for the first 
time, firm grasp upon the whole of what is now Wis- 
consin. 




THE BLACK HAWK WAR 

IN November, 1804, the Sac and Fox Indians, in 
return for a paltry annuity of a thousand dollars, 
ceded to the United States fifty million acres of land 
in eastern Missouri, northwestern Illinois, and south- 
western Wisconsin. There was an unfortunate clause 
in this compact, which quite unexpectedly became one 
of the chief causes of the Black Hawk War of 1832; 
instead of obliging the Indians at once to vacate the 
ceded territory, it was stipulated that, " as long as the 
lands which are now ceded to the United States re- 
main their property, the Indians belonging to said 
tribes shall enjoy the privilege of living and hunting 
on them." 

Within the limits of the cession was the chief seat 
of Sac power, a village lying on the north side of 
Rock River, three miles above its mouth. It was 
picturesquely situated on fertile ground, contained the 
principal cemetery of the tribe, and was inhabited by 
about five hundred families, being one of the largest 
Indian towns on the continent. 

From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the 
principal character in this village was Black Hawk, 
who was born here in 1767, Black Hawk was neither 

134 



135 



an hereditary nor an elected chief, but was, by com- 
mon consent, the village headman. He was a rest- 
less, ambitious, handsome savage ; was possessed of 
some of the qualities of successful leadership, was 
much of a demagogue, and aroused the passions of 
his people by appeals to their prejudices and super- 
stitions. It is probable that he was never, in the ex- 
ercise of this policy, dis- 
honest in his motives. A 
too confiding disposition 
was ever leading his judg- 
ment astray ; he was read- 
ily duped by those who, 
white or red, were inter- 
ested in deceiving him. 
The effect of his daily 
communication with the 
Americans was often to 
shock rudely his high 
sense of honor ; while the 
studied courtesy accorded 
him upon his annual beg- 
ging visit to the British military agent at Maiden, in 
Canada, contrasted strangely, in his eyes, with his 
experiences with many of the inhabitants on the Illi- 
nois border. 

At the outbreak of hostihties between Great Britain 
and the United States in 1812, Black Hawk naturally 
allied himself with Tecumseh and the British. After 
burying the hatchet, he settled down into the custom- 
ary routine of savage life, hunting in winter and loafing 




BLACK HAWK 



>36 

about his village in summer, improvidently existing 
from hand to mouth, although surrounded with abun- 
dance. Occasionally he varied the monotony by visits 
to Maiden, whence he would return laden with pro- 
visions, arms, ammunition, and trinkets, his stock of 
vanity increased by wily flattery, and his bitterness 
against the Americans correspondingly intensified. It 
is not at all surprising that he hated the Americans. 
They brought him naught but evil. The even tenor 
of his life was continually being disturbed by them ; 
and a cruel and causeless beating which some white 
settlers gave him, in the winter of 1822-23, was an 
insult which he treasured up against the entire Amer- 
ican people. 

In the summer of 1823, squatters, covetous of the 
rich fields cultivated by the " British band," as Black 
Hawk's people were often called, began to take pos- 
session of them. The treaty of 1804 had guaranteed 
to the Indians the use of the ceded territory so long 
as the lands remained the property of the United 
States and were not sold to individuals. The frontier 
line of homestead settlement was still fifty or sixty 
miles to the east ; the country between had not yet 
been surveyed, and much of it not explored. The 
squatters had no rights in this territory, and it was 
clearly the duty of the general government to pro- 
tect the Indians within it so long as no sales were 
made. 

The Sacs would not have complained had the squat- 
ters settled in other portions of the tract, and not 
sought to steal the village which was their birthplace 



137 

and contained the cemetery of their tribe. There were 
outrages of the most flagrant nature. Indian cornfields 
were fenced in by the intruders, squaws and children 
were whipped for venturing beyond the bounds thus 
set, lodges were burned over the heads of the occu- 
pants. A reign of terror ensued, in which the fre- 
quent remonstrances of Black Hawk to the white 
authorities were in vain. Year by year the evil grew. 
When the Indians returned each spring from the 
winter's hunt, they found their village more of a 
wreck than when they had left it in the fall. It is 
surprising, in view of their native love of revenge, 
that they acted so peaceably while the victims of 
such harsh treatment. 

Returning to his village in the spring of 1831, after a 
gloomy and profitless winter's hunt, Black Hawk was 
fiercely warned away by the whites ; but, in a firm and 
dignified manner, he notified the settlers that, if they 
did not themselves remove, he should use force. This 
announcement was construed by the whites as a threat 
against their lives. Petitions and messages were show- 
ered in by them upon Governor John Reynolds, of Illi- 
nois, setting forth the situation in exaggerated terms 
that would be amusing, were it not that they were the 
prelude to one of the darkest tragedies in the history of 
our Western border. 

The governor caught the spirit of the occasion, and 
at once issued a flaming proclamation calling- out a 
mounted volunteer force to " repel the invasion of the 
British band." These volunteers, sixteen hundred 
strong, cooperated with ten companies of regulars in a 



138 

demonstration before Black Hawk's village on the 
25th of June. During that night the Indians, in the 
face of this superior force, quietly withdrew to the west 
bank of the Mississippi, whither they had previously 
been ordered. On the 30th they signed a treaty of ca- 
pitulation and peace, solemnly agreeing never to return 
to the east side of the river without express permission 
of the United States government. 

The rest of the summer was spent by the evicted 
savages in a state of misery. It being now too late to 
raise another crop of corn and beans, they suffered 
for want of the actual necessaries of life. White Cloud, 
the eloquent and crafty Prophet of the Winnebagoes, 
was Black Hawk's evil genius. He was half Sac and 
half Winnebago, a hater of the whites, an inveterate 
mischief maker, and, being a '' medicine man," pos- 
sessed much influence over both tribes. He was at the 
head of a Winnebago village some thirty-five miles 
above the mouth of the Rock, on the east side of the 
Mississippi ; and to this village he invited Black Hawk, 
advising him to raise a crop of corn there, with the 
assurance that in the autumn the Winnebagoes and 
Pottawattomies would join him in a general movement 
against the whites in the valley of the Rock. 

Relying on these rose-colored promises. Black Hawk 
spent the winter on the west bank of the Mississippi, 
recruiting his band, and on the 6th of April, 1832, 
crossed the great river at Yellow Banks, below the 
mouth of the Rock. Thus he invaded the State of 
Illinois, in the face of his solemn treaty of the year 
before. With him were his second in command, Nea- 



139 

pope, a wily scoundrel, who was White Cloud's tool, 
and about five hundred Sac warriors with their women 
and children, and all their belongings. Their design 
was to carry out the advice of the Prophet, in regard 
to the corn planting, and if possible to take up the 
hatchet in the autumn. 

But it became evident to Black Hawk, before he 
reached the Prophet's town, that the main body of the 
Pottawattomies, now controlled by the peace loving 
Chief Shaubena, did not intend to go to war ; and that 
the rascally Winnebagoes, while cajoHng him, were 
preparing as usual to play double. He tells us in his 
autobiography that, crestfallen, he was planning to re- 
turn peacefully to the west side of the Mississippi, when 
of a sudden he became aware that the whites had raised 
an army against him, and he was confronted with a war 
not in the time and manner of his asking. 

The news of his second invasion had spread Hke wild- 
fire throughout the IlUnois and Wisconsin settlements. 
The United States was appealed to for a regiment of 
troops ; and meanwhile, under another fiery proclama- 
tion from the governor of Illinois, an army of eighteen 
hundred militiamen was quickly mustered. Amid in- 
tense popular excitement, during which many settlers 
fled from the country, and others hastily threw up log 
forts, the army was mobilized by General Atkinson, 
who appeared at the rendezvous with three hundred 
regulars. There were many notable men upon this ex- 
pedition : Abraham Lincoln, then a rawboned young 
fellow, was captain of a company of Illinois rangers ; 
Zachary Taylor, famous for his bluff manner, was a 



140 

colonel of regulars ; and Jefferson Davis, who was woo- 
ing Taylor's daughter, was one of his lieutenants ; also 
of the regulars, was Major WiUiam S. Harney, after- 
ward the hero of Cerro Gordo in the Mexican War ; 
and the mustering-in officer was Lieutenant Robert 
Anderson, who was to become famous in connection 
with Fort Sumter. 

Black Hawk was foolish enough to send a message 
of defiance to General Atkinson, and, retreating up the 
Rock, he came to a stand at Stillman's Creek. Here 
he repented, and sent out runners with a flag of truce, 
to inform the white chief that he would surrender ; but 
the drunken pickets of the militia advance wantonly 
killed these messengers of peace. This so angered the 
Hawk that with a mere handful of thirty-five braves, 
on foot, and hid in the hazel brush, he turned in fury 
upon the two hundred seventy-five horsemen who 
were now rushing upon him. The cowardly rangers, 
who fled at the first volley of the savages, without re- 
turning it, were haunted by the genius of fear, and, 
dashing madly through swamps and creeks, did not 
stop until they had reached Dixon, twenty-five miles 
away. Many kept on at a keen gallop till they 
reached their own firesides, fifty or more miles farther, 
carrying the absurd report that Black Plawk and two 
thousand bloodthirsty warriors were sweeping northern 
Illinois with the besom of destruction. 

Rich in supplies captured in this first encounter, and 
naturally encouraged at the result of his valor, the 
Hawk thought that so long as the whites were deter- 
mined to make him fight, he would show his claws in 



141 

earnest. Removing the women and children to far- 
away swamps on the headwaters of the Rock River, 
in Wisconsin, he thence descended with his braves for 
a general raid through northern Illinois. The bor- 
derers flew like chickens to cover, on the warning of 
the Hawk's foray. There was consternation through- 
out the entire West. Exaggerated reports of his forces, 
and of the nature of his expedition, were spread through- 
out the land. His name became coupled with fabulous 
tales of savage cunning and cruelty, and served as a 
household bugaboo the country over. The effect on 
the Illinois militia was singular enough, considering 
their haste in taking the field; in a frenzy of fear, 
they instantly disbanded ! 

A fresh levy was soon raised, but in the interval 
there were irregular hostilities all along the Illinois- 
Wisconsin border, in which Black Hawk and a few 
Winnebago and Pottaw^attomie allies succeeded in mak- 
ing life miserable enough for the frontier farmers of 
northern Illinois and the lead miners of southwest 
Wisconsin. In these border strifes fully two hundred 
whites and nearly as many Indians lost their lives ; and 
there were numerous instances of romantic heroism on 
the part of the settlers, men and women alike. 

In about three weeks after Stillman's defeat the reor- 
ganized militia took the field, reenforced by the regulars 
under Atkinson. Black Hawk was forced to fly to the 
swampy region of the upper Rock ; but, when the pur- 
suit became too warm, he hastily withdrew with his 
entire band westward to the Wisconsin River. Closely 
following upon his trail were a brigade of Illinois troops 



142 

under General James D. Henry, and a battalion of Wis- 
consin lead mine rangers under Major Henry Dodge, 
afterwards governor of Wisconsin Territory. 

The pursuers came up with the savages at Prairie du 
Sac. Here the south bank of the Wisconsin consists of 
steep, grassy bluffs, three hundred feet in height ; hence 
the encounter which ensued is known in history as the 
Battle of the Wisconsin Heights. With consummate 
skill. Black Hawk made a stand on the summit of the 
heights, and with a small party of warriors held the 
whites in check until the noncombatants had crossed 
the broad river bottoms below, and gained shelter upon 
the w^illow^-grown shore opposite. The loss on either 
side was slight, the action being notable only for the 
Sac leader's superior management. 

During the night, the passage of the river was ac- 
complished by the fugitives. A large party was sent 
downstream upon a raft, and in canoes begged from 
the Winnebagoes ; but those who took this method of 
escape were brutally fired upon near the mouth of the 
river by a detachment from the garrison at Prairie du 
Chien, and fifteen were killed in cold blood. The rest 
of the pursued, headed by Black Hawk, who had again 
made an attempt to surrender his forces, but had failed 
for lack of an interpreter, pushed across country, 
guided by Winnebagoes, to the mouth of the Bad Ax, 
a little stream emptying into the Mississippi about forty 
miles above the mouth of the Wisconsin River. His 
intention was to get his people as quickly as possible 
on the west bank of the Mississippi, in the hope that 
they would there be allowed to remain in peace. 



143 

The Indians were followed, three days behind, by the 
united army of regulars, who steadily gained on them. 
The country between Wisconsin Heights and the Mis- 
sissippi is rough and forbidding in character ; there are 
numerous swamps and rivers between the steep, thickly 
wooded hills. The uneven pathway was strewn with 
the corpses of Sacs who had died of wounds and starva- 




tion ; and there were frequent evidences that the flee- 
ing wretches were sustaining life on the bark of trees 
and the flesh of their fagged-out ponies. 

On Wednesday, the ist of August, Black Hawk 
and his now sadly depleted and almost famished band 
reached the junction of the Bad Ax with the Missis- 
sippi. There were only two or three canoes to be had, 
and the crossing of the Father of Waters progressed 



144 

slowly and with frequent loss of life. That afternoon 
there appeared upon the scene a government supply 
steamer, the Warrior, from Fort Crawford (Prairie du 
Chien), at the mouth of the Wisconsin. The Indians a 
third time tried to surrender, but their white flag was 
deliberately fired at, and round after round of canister 
swept the camp. 

The next day the pursuing troops arrived on the 
heights above the river bench, the JJ'arn'or again 
opened its attack, and thus, caught between two gall- 
ing fires, the little army of savages soon melted away. 
But fifty remained alive on the spot to be taken pris- 
oners. Some three hundred weaklings had reached the 
Iowa shore through the hail of iron and lead. Of these 
three hundred helpless, half-starved, unarmed noncom- 
batants, over a half were slaughtered by a party of 
Sioux, under Wabashaw, who had been sent out by 
our government to waylay them. So that out of the 
band of a thousand Indians who had crossed the Mis- 
sissippi over into Illinois in April, not more than a 
hundred and fifty, all told, lived to tell the tragic story 
of the Black Hawk War, a tale that stains the Ameri- 
can name with dishonor. 

The rest can soon be told. The Winnebago guer- 
rillas, who had played fast and loose during the cam- 
paign, delivered to the whites at Fort Crawford the 
unfortunate Black Hawk, who had fled from the Bad 
Ax to the Dells of the Wisconsin River, to seek an 
asylum with his false friends. The proud old man, 
shorn of all his strength, was presented to the Presi- 
dent, at Washington, imprisoned in Fortress Monroe, 



H5 

forced to sign articles of perpetual peace, and then 
turned over for safe keeping to the Sac chief, Keokuk, 
his hated rival. He died on a small reservation in 
Iowa, in 1838. But he was not even then at peace, 
for his bones were stolen by an Illinois physician, for 
exhibition purposes, and finally were accidentally con- 
sumed by fire in 1853. 

Black Hawk, with all the limitations of his race, had 
in his character a strength and manliness of fiber that 
were most remarkable, and displayed throughout his 
brief campaign a positive genius for military evolutions. 
He may be safely ranked as one of the most interesting 
specimens of the North American savage to be met 
with in history. He was an indiscreet man. His 
troubles were brought about by a lack of mental bal- 
ance, aided largely by unfortunate circumstances. His 
was a highly romantic temperament. He was carried 
away by mere sentiment, and allowed himself to be 
deceived by tricksters. But he was honest, and was 
more honorable than many of his conquerors were. 
He was, above all things, a patriot. The year before 
his death, in a speech to a party of w^hites who w^ere 
making a holiday hero of him, he thus forcibly defended 
his motives : " Rock River was a beautiful country. I 
liked my town, my cornfields, and the home of my 
people. I fought for them." No poet could have 
penned for him a more touching epitaph. 



STU. OF BADGER STA. • 



THE STORY OF CHEOUAMEGON BAY 

CHEQUAMEGON BAY, of Lake Superior, has 
had a long and an interesting history. Nearly 
two and a half centuries ago, in the early winter 
months of 1659, two adventurous French traders, 
Radisson and Groseilliers, built a little palisade here, 
to protect the stock of goods which they exchanged 
with the Indians for furs. This was on the southwest- 
ern shore of the bay, a few miles west of the present 
city of Ashland, and in the neighborhood of Whittle- 
sey's Creek. 

These men did not tarry long at Chequamegon Bay. 
For the most part, they merely kept their stock of 
goods hid in a cacJie there, while for some ten months 
they traveled through the woods, far and wide, in 
search of trade with the dusky natives. But they made 
the region known to Frenchmen in the settlements at 
Quebec and Montreal, as a favorite meeting-place for 
many tribes of Indians who came to the bay to fish. 

The first Jesuit mission on Lake Superior was con- 
ducted by Father Rene Menard, at Keweenaw Bay ; 
but he lost his life in the forest in 1661. In 1665 
the Jesuits determined to reopen their mission on the 
great lake, and for that purpose sent Father Claude 

14b 



147 



Allouez. Having heard of the advantages of Chequa- 
megon Bay, Allouez proceeded thither, and erected his 
little chapel in an Indian village upon the mainland, 
j-iot far from Radisson's old palisade, and possibly at 
the mouth of Vanderventer's Creek. He called his 
mission La Pointe. 

Conversions were few at La Pointe, and Allouez 
soon longed for a broader field. He was relieved in 
1669 by Father Jacques Marquette, a young and 
earnest priest. But it was not long before the Sioux 
of Minnesota quarreled with the Indians of Chequa- 
megon Bay ; and the latter, with Marquette, I 
were driven eastward as far as Mackinac. ,_^ 

Although the missionaries had de- 
serted La Pointe, fur traders soon came 



j: 



to be numerous 
there. One 
of the most 



.J4 . 







prominent of these was Daniel Grayson Duluth, for 
whom the modern lake city of Minnesota was named. 
For several years he had a small palisaded fort upon 
Chequamegon Bay, and, with a lively crew of well- 
armed boatmen, roamed all over the surrounding coun- 



148 

try, north, west, and south of Lake Superior, trading 
with far-away bands of savages. He had two favor- 
ite routes between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi 
River. One was by way of the narrow and turbulent 
Bois Brule, then much choked by fallen trees and 
beaver dams ; a portage trail of a mile and a half from 
its headwaters to those of the St. Croix River; and 
thence, through foaming rapids, and deep, cool lakes, 
down into the Father of Waters. The other, an easier, 
but longer way, was up the rugged St. Louis River, 
which separates Wisconsin from Minnesota on the 
northwest, over into the Sand Lake country, and 
thence, through watery labyrinths, into feeders of the 
Mississippi. 

Another adventurous French forest trader, who quar- 
tered on Chequamegon Bay, was Le Sueur, who, in 
1693, built a fort upon Madelaine Island. During 
the old Fox War the valleys of the Fox and the 
Wisconsin were closed to Frenchmen by the enraged 
Indians. This, the most popular route between the 
Great Lakes and the great river, being now unavailable, 
it became necessary to keep open Duluth's old routes 
from Lake Superior over to the Upper Mississippi. 
This was why Le Sueur was sent to Chequamegon 
Bay, to overawe the Indians of that region. He 
thought that his fort would be safer from attack upon 
the island, than upon the mainland. As La Pointe 
had now come to be the general name of this entire 
neighborhood, the island fort bore the same name as 
the old headquarters on land. It is well to remember 
that the history of Madelaine Island, the La Pointe of 



149 

to-day, dates from Le Sueur ; that the old La Pointe 
of Radisson, AUouez, Marquette, and probably Duluth, 
was on the mainland several miles to the southwest. 

In connection with the La Pointe fort protecting the 
northern approach to Duluth's trading routes, Le Sueur 
erected another stockade to guard the southern end, 
the location of this latter being on an island in the 
Mississippi, near the present Red Wing, Minnesota. 
The fort in the Mississippi soon became ''the center of 
commerce for the Western parts " ; and the station at 
La Pointe also soon rose to importance, for the Chip- 
pewas, who had drifted far inland with the growing 
scarcity of game, were led by the presence of traders 
to return to Chequamegon Bay, and mass themselves 
in a large village on the southwest shore. 

Although Le Sueur was not many years in command 
at the bay, we catch frequent ghmpses thereafter of fur 
trade stations here, French, English, and American 
in turn, most of them doubtless being on Madelaine 
Island. We know, for instance, that there was a 
French trader at La Pointe in 1717; also, that the year 
following, a French officer was sent there, with a few 
soldiers, to patch up and garrison the old stockade. 
Whether a garrisoned fort was kept up at the bay, from 
that time till the downfall of New France (1763), we 
cannot say ; but it seems probable, for the geographical 
position was one of great importance in the development 
of the fur trade. 

We first hear of copper in the vicinity, in 1750, when 
an Indian brought a nugget to the La Pointe post; but 
the whereabouts of the mine was concealed by the 



150 

savages, because of their superstitions relative to min- 
eral deposits. 

The commandant of La Pointe, at this time, was La 
Ronde, the chief fur trader in the Lake Superior coun- 
try. He and his son, who was his partner, built for 
their trade a sailing vessel of forty tons burden, without 
doubt the first one of the kind upon the great lake. 
We find evidences of the La Rondes, father and son, 
down as late as 1744; a curious old map of that year 
gives the name of " Isle de la Ronde " to what we now 
know as Madelaine. 

We find nothing more of importance concerning Che- 
quamegon Bay until about 1756, when Beaiibassin was 
the French oi^cer in charge of the fort. The English 
colonists were harassing the French along the St. Law- 
rence River ; and Beaubassin, with hundreds of other 
officers of wilderness forts, was ordered down with his 
Indian allies to the settlements of Montreal, Three 
Rivers, and Quebec, to defend New France. The 
Chippewas, with other Wisconsin tribes, actuated by 
extravagant promises of presents, booty, and scalps, 
eagerly flocked to the banner of France, and in painted 
swarms appeared in fighting array on the banks of 
the St. Lawrence. But they helped the British more 
than the French, for they would not fight, yet with 
large appetites ate up the provisions of their allies. 

The garrison being withdrawn from La Pointe, Made- 
laine Island became a camping-ground for unlicensed 
traders, who had freedom to plunder the country at 
their will, for New France, tottering to her fall, could 
no longer police the upper lakes. In the autumn of 



151 

1760 one of these parties encamped upon the island. 
By the time winter had set in upon them, all had left 
for their wintering grounds in the forests of the far 
West and Northwest, save a clerk named Joseph, who 
remained in charge of the goods and what local trade 
there was. With him were his wife, his small son, 
and a manservant. Traditions differ as to the cause of 
the servant's action ; some have it, a desire for plun- 
der; others, his detection in a series of petty thefts, 
which Joseph threatened to report. However that may 
be, the servant murdered first the clerk, then the wife, 
and in a few days, stung by the child's piteous cries, 
killed him also. When the spring came, and the 
traders returned to Chequamegon, they inquired for 
Joseph and his family. The servant's reply was at first 
unsatisfactory ; but w^hen pushed for an explanation, 
he confessed to his terrible deed. The story goes, that 
in horror the traders dismantled the old French fort, 
now^ overgrown with underbrush, as a thing accursed, 
sunk the cannon in a neighboring pool, and so de- 
stroyed the palisade that to-day certain mysterious 
grassy mounds alone remain to testify of the tragedy. 
They carried their prisoner with them on their return 
voyage to Montreal, but he is said to have escaped to 
the Huron Indians, among whom he boasted of his 
act, only to be killed by them as too cruel to be a 
companion even for savages. 

Five years later a great. English trader, Alexan- 
der Henry, who had obtained the exclusive trade on 
Lake Superior, wintered on- the mainland opposite 
Madelaine Island. His partner was Jean Baptiste 



152 

Cadotte, a thrifty Frenchman, who for many years 
thereafter was one of the most prominent characters on 
the upper lakes. Soon after this, a Scotch trader 
named John Johnston estabUshed himself on the island, 
and married a comely Chippewa maiden, whose father 
was chief of the native village situated four miles across 
the water, on the site of the Bayfield of to-day. 

About the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
Michel, a son of old Jean Baptiste Cadotte, took up 
his abode on the island ; and from that time to the 
present there has been a continuous settlement there, 
which bears the name La Pointe. Michel, himself the 
child of a Chippewa mother, but educated at Montreal, 
married Equaysayway, the daughter of White Crane, 
the village chief on the island, and became a person 
of much importance thereabout. For over a quarter 
of a century this island nabob lived at his ease ; here 
he cultivated a little farm, commanded a variable but 
far-reaching fur trade, first as agent of the North- 
west Company, and, later, of the American Fur Com- 
pany, and reared a large family. His sons were 
educated at Montreal, and become the heads of fami- 
lies of traders, interpreters, and voyageurs. 

To this little paradise of the Cadottes there came (in 
1818) two sturdy, fairly educated young men from Mas- 
sachusetts, Lyman Marcus Warren, and his younger 
brother, Truman Warren. Engaging in the fur trade, 
these two brothers, of old Puritan stock, married two 
half-breed daughters of Michel Cadotte. In time they 
bought out Michel's interests, and managed the Ameri- 
can Fur Company's stations at many far-distant places, 



153 

such as Lac Flambeau, Lac Court Oreilles, and the 
St. Croix. The Warrens were the last of the great 
La Pointe fur traders, Truman dying in 1825, and 
Lyman twenty-two years later. 

Lyman Warren, although possessed of a CathoUc 
wife, was a Presbyterian. Not since the days of Mar- 
quette had there been an ordained minister at La Pointe, 
and the Catholics w^ere not just then ready to reenter 
the long-neglected field. Warren was eager to have 
religious instruction on the island, for both Indians 
and whites; and in 1831 succeeded in inducing the 
American Home Missionary Society to send hither, 
from Mackinac, the Rev. Sherman Hall and wife, as 
missionary and teacher. These were the first Protes- 
tant missionaries upon the shores of Lake Superior. 
For many years their modest little church building at 
La Pointe was the center of a considerable and pros- 
perous mission, both island and mainland, which did 
much to improve the condition of the Chippewa tribe. 
In later years the mission was moved to Odanah. 

Four years after the coming of the Halls, there 
arrived at the island village a worthy Austrian priest, 
Father (afterward Bishop) Baraga. In a small log 
chapel by the side of the Indian graveyard, this new 
mission of the older faith throve apace. Baraga visited 
Europe to beg money for the cause, and in a few years 
constructed a new chapel ; this is sometimes shown to 
summer tourists as the original chapel of Marquette, 
but no part of the ancient mainland chapel went into 
its construction. Baraga was a man of unusual attain- 
ments, and spent his life in laboring for the better- 



54 



ment of the Indians of the Lake Superior country, 
with a self-sacrificing zeal which is rare in the records 
of any church. At present, the Franciscan friars, with 
headquarters at Bayfield, on the mainland, are in charge 
of the island mission. 

La Pointe has lost many of its old-time characteris- 
tics. No longer is it the refuge of squalid Indian tribes ; 







V4/, 






%'m 



no longer is it a center of the fur trade, with gayly 
clothed coureurs de bois, with traders and their dusky 
brides, with rollicking voyagcurs taking no heed of the 
morrow. With the killing of the game, and the opening 
of the Lake Superior country to the occupation of 
farmers and miners and manufacturers, its forest trade 
has departed ; the Protestant m'ission has followed the 
majority of the Indian islanders to mainland reserva- 
tions ; and the revived mission of the Mother Church 
has also been quartered upon the bay shore. 



WISCONSIN TERRITORY FORMED 

WHAT we now know as Wisconsin was part of the 
vast undefined wilderness to which the Spaniards, 
early in the sixteenth century, gave the name Florida. 
Spain claimed the country because of the early dis- 
coveries of her navigators and explorers. Her claim 
was undisputed until there came to North America 
the energetic French, who penetrated the continent 
by means of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers and 
the Great Lakes, and gradually took possession of the 
inland water systems, as fast as discovered by their 
fur traders and missionaries. It should be understood, 
however, that there were very few, if any, Spaniards 
in all this vast territory, except on or near the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

In 1608 Quebec was founded. It is supposed that 
twenty-six years later the first Frenchman reached Wis- 
consin, which may, from that date (1634) till 1763, be 
considered as a part of French territory. When Great 
Britain conquered New France, Wisconsin became her 
property, and so continued till the treaty of 1783, by 
which our Northwest was declared to be American soil. 

Owing to the vague and undefined boundaries given 
by the British government to its original colonies on the 

155 



156 

Atlantic slope, several of the thirteen States claimed 
that their territory extended out into the Northwest ; 
but finally all these claims were surrendered to the 
general government, in order that there might be 
formed a national domain, from which to create new 
States. By the famous Ordinance of 1787, Congress 
created the Northwest Territory, which embraced the 
wide stretch of country lying between the Great Lakes 
and the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers. The present 
Wisconsin was a part of this great territory. 

In the year 1800 Indiana Territory was set off from 
the rest of the Northwest Territory, and took Wisconsin 
with it. Nine years later Illinois Territory was formed, 
Wisconsin being within its bounds. Nine years after 
that, when Illinois became a State, all the country lying 
west of Lake Michigan was given to Michigan Terri- 
tory ; thus was the ownership of Wisconsin once more 
changed, and she became a part of "Michigan. 

By this time settlers were coming into the region 
west of the lake. There had long been several little 
French villages ; but, in addition to the French, numer- 
ous American farmers and professional men had lately 
arrived. The great distance from Detroit, at a time 
when there were no railways or telegraphs, was such as 
to make it almost impossible to carry on any govern- 
ment here. Hence, after a good deal of complaint 
from the frontiersmen living to the west of Lake 
Michigan, and some angry words back and forth be- 
tween these people and those residing east of the lake, 
Congress was induced, in 1836, to erect Wisconsin 
Territory, with its own government. 



157 

Thus far, this region beyond Lake Michigan had 
borne no particular name. It was simply an outlying 
part of the Northwest Territory; or of the Territories 
of Indiana, Illinois, or Michigan, as the case might be. 
But, now that it was to be a Territory by itself, a name 
had to be adopted. The one taken was that of its 
principal river, although '' Chippewau " was preferred 
by many people. Wisconsin is an Indian name, the 
exact meaning of which is unknown; some writers have 
said that it signifies ''gathering of the waters," or 
"meeting of the waters," but there is no warrant for 
this. The earliest known French form of the word is 
" Misconsing," which gradually became crystallized into 
*' Ouisconsin." When the EngHsh language became 
dominant, it was necessary to change the spelling in 
order' to preserve the sound ; it thus, at first, became 
*' Wiskonsan," or *' Wiskonsin," but 
finally, by official action, _._^^r= 

"Wisconsin." The"k' 
was, however, rather 

strongly insisted on /■ , ,_ . ._ ^. ...^^^^ 

by Governor Doty ^^^ii''-S-^_"^j^-7,^,^.,;i|^ 




and manv news- ::^^^^^I^»^S^^ 



paper editors, in the 
days of the Territory. 

The first session of the legislature of the new Terri- 
tory of Wisconsin was held at the recently platted vil- 
lage of Belmont, in the present county of Lafayette. 
The place of meeting was a little story-and-a-half frame 
house. Lead miners' shafts dimpled the country round 
about, and new stumps could be seen upon every hand. 



-<iif^>-'- 



■ 58 

There were many things to be done by the legislature, 
such as dividing the Territory into counties, selecting 
county seats, incorporating banks, and borrowing money 
with which to run the new government ; but the matter 
which occasioned the most excitement was the location 
of the capital, and the bitterness which resulted was 
long felt in the political history of Wisconsin. 

A month was spent in this contest. The claimants 
were Milwaukee, Racine, Koshkonong, Fond du Lac, 
Green Bay, Madison, Wisconsinapolis, Peru, Wisconsin 
City, Portage, Helena, Belmont, Mineral Point, Platte- 
ville, Cassville, Belleview, and Dubuque (now in Iowa, 
but then in Wisconsin). Some of theSe towns existed 
only upon maps published by real estate speculators. 

Madison was a beautiful spot, in the heart of the wild 
woods and lakes of central southern Wisconsin. It was 
unknown save to a few trappers, and to the speculators 
who had bought the land from the federal government, 
and thought they saw a fortune in inducing the legisla- 
ture to adopt it as the seat of government. Madison 
won, upon the argument that it was halfway between 
the rival settlements on Lake Michigan and the Missis- 
sippi, and that to build a city there would assist in the 
development of the interior of the Territory. 

When Madison was chosen, a surveyor hurried thither, 
and in a bhnding snowstorm laid out the prospective 
city. The village grew slowly, and it was November, 
1838, before the legislature could meet in its new home. 




WISCONSIN BECOMES A STATE 



OOME of the people of Wisconsin were not long con- 
^ tent with a Territorial government. The Territory 
was only two years old when a bill was introduced in 
Congress for a State government, but the attempt failed. 
In 1 84 1 Governor Doty, the leader in the movement, 
had the question put to popular vote ; but it was lost, 
as it also was in the year following. In 1843 a third 
attempt was defeated in the Territorial council (or sen- 
ate); and in 1845, still another met defeat in the Terri- 
torial house of representatives (or assembly). 

But at last our Territorial representative in Congress 
gave notice (January 9, 1846), ''of a motion for leave 
to introduce a bill to enable the people of Wisconsin 
to form a constitution and State government, and for 
the admission of such State into the Union." He fol- 
lowed this, a few days later, by the introduction of a 
bill to that effect ; the bill passed, and in August the 
measure was approved by President Polk. 

159 



i6o 

Meanwhile, the council and house of Wisconsin Ter- 
ritory had favorably voted on the proposition. This was 
in January and February, 1846. In April the question 
of Statehood was passed upon by the people of the 
Territory, the returns this time showing 12,334 votes 
for, and 2487 against. In August, Governor Dodge 
issued a proclamation calling a convention for the draft- 
ing of a constitution. 

The convention was in session in the Territorial capi- 
tol at Madison, between October 5 and December 16, 
1846. But the constitution which it framed was rejected 
by the people. The contest over the document had been 
of an exciting nature ; the defeat was owing to differ- 
ences of opinion upon the articles relating to the rights 
of married women, exemptions, banks, the elective judi- 
ciary, and the number of members of the legislature. 

As soon as practicable, Governor Dodge called a spe- 
cial session of the Territorial legislature, which made 
provisions for a second constitutional convention. Most 
of the members of the first convention declined reelec- 
tion ; six only were returned. The second convention 
was in session at Madison from December 15, 1847, 
to February i, 1848. The members of both conventions 
were men of high standing in their several communi- 
ties, and later many of them held prominent positions 
in the service of the State and the nation. 

The constitution adopted by the second convention 
was so satisfactory to most people, that the popular ver- 
dict in March (16,799 ayes and 6384 noes) surprised no 
one. Arrangements for a new bill in Congress, admit- 
ting Wisconsin to the Union, were already well under 



i6i 



way. Upon the very day of the vote by the people, 
before the result was known, the Territorial legislature 
held its final meeting, and left everything ready for the 
new State government. 

The general election for the first State officers and the 
members of the first State legislature was held May 8. 
President Polk approved the congressional act of admis- 
sion May 29. Upon the 7th of June, Governor Nelson 
Dewey and his fellow-officials were sworn into office, 
and the legislature opened its first session. 

In the old lead mining days of Wisconsin, miners 
from southern IlHnois and still farther south returned 
home every winter, and came back to the ** diggings" 
in the spring, thus imitating the migrations of the 
fish popularly called the "sucker," in the south-flowing 
rivers of the region. For this reason the south-winterers 
were humorously called '' Suckers." On the other hand, 
lead miners from the far-off Eastern States were un- 
able to return home every winter, and at first lived in 
rude dugouts, burrowing into the hillsides after the 
fashion of the badger. These burrowing men were the 
first permanent settlers in the mines north of the Illi- 
nois line, and called themselves *' Badgers." Thus 
Wisconsin, in later days, when it was thought necessary 
to adopt a nickname, was, by its own people, dubbed 
" The Badger State." 



STO. OK BADCF.R STA. — 1 1 



THE BOUNDARIES OF WISCONSIN 

IN the Ordinance of 1787, whereby Congress created 
the old Northwest Territory out of the triangle of 
country lying between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers 
and Lake of the Woods and the Great Lakes, it was 
provided that this vast region should eventually be 
parcelled into five States. The east-and-west dividing 
line was to be "drawn through the southerly bend or 
extreme of Lake Michigan " ; south of this line were to 
be erected three States, and north of it two. " When- 
ever," the ordinance read, " any of the said States shall 
have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State 
shall be admitted " to the Union. 

It should be said, in explanation of this east-and-west 
line, that all the maps of Lake Michigan then extant 
represented the head of the lake as being much farther 
north than it was proved to be by later surveys. The 
line as fixed in the ordinance proved to be a bone of 
contention in the subsequent carving of the Northwest 
Territory into States, leading to a good deal of angry 
discussion before the boundaries of Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 
nois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the five States eventually 
formed from the Territory, became estabUshed as they 
are to-day. 

162 



1 63 



Ohio, the first State to be set off, insisted that Mau- 
mee Bay, with the town of Toledo, should be included 
in her bounds, although it lay north of the east-and- 
west line of the ordinance. Michigan, on the other 
hand, stoutly insisted on the line as laid down in the 
law. In 1835 and 1836 there were some popular dis- 




turbances along the border ; one of these, though blood- 
less, was so violent as to receive the name of ''the 
Toledo w^ar." Congress finally settled the quarrel by 



givm< 



Ohio the northern boundary which she desired, 



regardless of the terms of the ordinance ; Michigan 
was compensated by the gift of what we now call the 
"northern peninsula" of that State, although it had 
all along been understood that the country lying west 



164 

of Lake Michigan should be the property of the fifth 
State, whenever that was created. Thus, in order that 
Ohio might have another lake port from Michigan, Wis- 
consin lost this immense tract of mining country to the 
north. 

When Indiana came to be erected, it was seen that to 
adopt the east-and-west line, established by the ordi- 
nance, would be to deprive her entirely of any part of 
the coast of Lake Michigan. In order, therefore, to 
satisfy her. Congress took another strip, ten miles wide, 
from the southern border of Michigan, and gave it to 
the new State. Michigan made no objection to this 
fresh violation of the agreement of 1787, because there 
were no important harbors or towns involved. 

Illinois next knocked at the door of the Union. The 
same conditions applied to her as to Indiana ; a strict 
construction of the ordinance would deprive her of an 
opening on the lake. The Illinois delegate who argued 
this matter in Congress was shrewd ; he contended that 
his State must become intimately connected with the 
growing commerce of the northern lakes, else she would 
be led, from her commercial relations upon the south- 
flowing Mississippi and Ohio rivers, to join a Southern 
confederacy in case the Union should be broken up. 
This was in 1818, and shows how early in our history 
there had come to be, in the minds of some far-seeing 
men, a fear that the growing power of slavery might 
some time lead to secession. The argument prevailed 
in Congress, and there was voted to Illinois a strip of 
territory sixty-one miles wide, lying north of the east- 
and-west line. 



i65 

Thus again was the region later to be called Wisconsin 
deprived of a large and valuable tract. When Wiscon- 
sin Territory was created, there was a great deal of 
indignation expressed by some of her people, at being 
deprived of this wide belt of country embracing 8500 
square miles of exceedingly fertile soil, numerous river 
and lake ports, many miles of fine water power, and the 
sites of Chicago, Rockford, Freeport, Galena, Oregon, 
Dixon, and numerous other prosperous cities. 

An attempt was made in 1836, at the time the Terri- 
tory was established, to secure for Wisconsin's benefit 
the old east-and-west line, as its rightful southern 
boundary. But Congress declined to grant this request. 
Three years later, the Wisconsin Territorial legislature 
declared that " a large and valuable tract of country is 
now held by the State of Illinois, contrary to the mani- 
fest right and consent of the people of this Territory." 

The inhabitants of the district in northern Illinois 
which was claimed by Wisconsin, were invited by these 
resolutions to express their opinion on the matter. Pub- 
lic meetings were consequently held in several of the 
Ilhnois towns interested ; and resolutions were adopted, 
declaring in favor of the Wisconsin claim. The move- 
ment culminated in a convention at Rockford (July 6, 
1839), attended by delegates from nine of the four- 
teen IlUnois counties involved. This convention recom- 
mended the counties to elect delegates to a convention 
to be held in Madison, ''for the purpose of adopting 
such lawful and constitutional measures as may seem 
to be necessary and proper for the early adjustment of 
the southern boundary." 



1 66 

Curiously enough, the weight of public sentiment in 
Wisconsin itself did not favor the movement. At a 
large meeting held in Green Bay, the following April, 
the people of that section passed resolutions " viewing 
the resolutions of the legislature with concern and re- 
gret," and asking that they be rescinded. With this, 
popular agitation ceased for the time ; and in the fol- 
lowing year the legislature promptly defeated a proposi- 
tion for the renewal of the question. 

Governor Doty, however, was a stanch advocate of 
the idea, and at the legislative session of 1842 contrived 
to work up considerable enthusiasm in its behalf. A 
bill was reported by the committee on Territorial affairs, 
asking the people in the disputed tract to hold an elec- 
tion on the question of uniting with Wisconsin. There 
were some rather fiery speeches upon the subject, some 
of the orators going so far as to threaten force in acquir- 
ing the wished-for strip ; but the legislature itself took 
no action. However, in Stephenson and Boone coun- 
ties, Illinois, elections were actually held, at which all 
but one or two votes were cast in favor of the Wiscon- 
sin claim. 

Governor Doty, thus encouraged, busily continued 
his agitation. He issued proclamations warning Illi- 
nois that it was " exercising an accidental and tempo- 
rary jurisdiction " over the disputed strip, and calling 
on the two legislatures to authorize the people to vote 
on the question of restoring Wisconsin to her " ancient 
limits." At first, neither the legislatures of Illinois nor 
Wisconsin paid much attention to the matter. Finally, 
in 1843, the Wisconsin legislature sent a rather war- 



i67 

like address to Congress, in which secession was clearly 
threatened, unless the "birthright of Wisconsin" were 
restored. Congress, however, very sensibly paid no 
heed to the address, and gradually the excitement sub- 
sided, until eventually Wisconsin was made a State, 
with her present boundaries. 

We have seen that the northern peninsula was given 
to Michigan as a recompense for her loss of Toledo and 
Maumee Bay. But when it became necessary to deter- 
mine the boundary between the peninsula and the new 
Territory of Wisconsin, now set off from Michigan, some 
difficulty arose, owing to the fact that the country had 
not been thoroughly surveyed, and there was no good 
map of it extant. 

There were various propositions ; one of them was, to 
use the Chocolate River as part of the Une ; had this 
prevailed, Wisconsin would have gained the greater 
part of the peninsula. But the line of division at last 
adopted was that of the Montreal and Menominee 
rivers, by the way of Lake Vieux Desert. This line 
had been selected in 1834, because a map published 
that year represented the headwaters of those rivers as 
meeting in Lake Vieux Desert ; hence it was supposed 
by the congressional committee that this would make 
an excellent natural boundary. When, however, the 
line came to be actually laid out by the surveyors, six 
years later, for the purpose of setting boundary monu- 
ments, it was discovered that Lake Vieux Desert had 
no connection with either stream, being, in fact, the 
headwaters of the Wisconsin River; and that the run- 
ning of the line through the woods, between the far- 



1 68 

distant headwaters of the Montreal and Menominee, 
so as to touch the lake on the way, involved a laborious 
task, and resulted in a crooked boundary. But it was 
by this time too late to correct the geographical error, 
and the awkward boundary thus remains. . 

As originally provided by the Ordinance of 1787, 
Wisconsin, as the fifth State to be created out of the 
Northwest Territory, was, even after being shorn upon 
the south and northeast, at least entitled to have as 
her western boundary the Mississippi to its source, and 
thence a straight line running northward to the Lake 
of the Woods and the Canadian boundary. But here 
again she was to suffer loss of soil, this time in favor of 
Minnesota. 

As a Territory, Wisconsin had been given sway over 
all the country lying to the west, as far as the Mis- 
souri River. In 1838, all beyond the Mississippi was 
detached, and erected into the Territory of Iowa. Eight 
years later, when Wisconsin first sought to be a State, 
the question arose as to her western boundary. Natu- 
rally, the people of the eastern and southern sections 
wished the one set forth in the ordinance. But settle- 
ments had by this time been established along the 
Upper Mississippi and in the St. Croix valley. These 
were far removed from the bulk of settlement elsewhere 
in Wisconsin, and had neither social nor business inter- 
ests in common with^them. The people of the north- 
west wished to be released from Wisconsin, in order 
that they might either cast their fortunes with their 
near neighbors in the new Territory of Minnesota, or 
join a movement just then projected for the creation 



169 

of an entirely new State, to be called "Superior." This 
proposed state was to embrace all the country north of 
Mont Trempealeau and east of the Mississippi, includ- 
ing the entire northern peninsula, if the latter could be 
obtained; thus commanding the southern and western 
shores of Lake Superior, with the mouth of Green Bay 
and the foot of Lake Michigan to the southeast. 

The St. Croix representative in the legislature was 
especially wedded to the Superior project. He pleaded 
earnestly and eloquently for his people, whose progress, 
he said, would be ''greatly hampered by being con- 
nected politically with a country from which they are 
separated by nature, cut off from communication by 
immense spaces of wilderness between." A memorial 
from the settlers themselves stated the case with even 
more vigor, asserting that they were "widely separated 
from the settled parts of Wisconsin, not only by hun- 
dreds of miles of mostly waste and barren lands, which 
must remain uncultivated for ages, but equally so by a 
diversity of interests and character in the population." 
All of this reads curiously enough in these days, when 
the intervening wilderness resounds with the hum of 
industry and "blossoms as the rose." But that was 
long before the days of railroads; the dense forests of 
central and western Wisconsin then constituted a for- 
midable wilderness, peopled only by savages and wild 
beasts. 

Unable to influence the Wisconsin legislature, which 
stubbornly contended for the possession of the original 
tract, the St. Croix people next urged their claims upon 
Congress. The proposed State of Superior found little 



I70 

favor at Washington, but there was a general feeUng 
that Wisconsin would be much too large unless trimmed. 
The result was that when she was finally admitted as 
a State, the St. Croix River was, in large part, made 
her northwest boundary ; Minnesota in this manner ac- 
quired a vast stretch of country, including the thriving 
city of St. Paul. 

Wisconsin was thus shorn of valuable territory on the 
south, to please Illinois; on the northeast, to favor 
Michigan ; and on the northwest, that some of her set- 
tlers might join their fortunes with Minnesota. The 
State, however, is still quite as large as most of her 
sisters in the Old Northwest, and possesses an unusual 
variety of soils, and a great wealth of forests, mines, and 
fisheries. There is a strong probability that, had Con- 
gress, in 1848, given to Wisconsin her ''ancient limits," 
as defined by the Ordinance of 1787, the movement to 
create the proposed state of " Superior " would have 
gathered strength in the passing years, and possibly 
would have achieved success, thus depriving us of our 
great northern forests and mines, and our outlet upon 
the northern lake. 



LIFE IN PIONEER DAYS 

SO long as the fur trade remained the principal busi- 
ness in Wisconsin, the French were still supreme 
at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien ; and, until a third 
of the nineteenth century had passed away, there ex- 
isted at these outposts of New France a social life 
which smacked of the " old regime," bearing more 
traces of seventeenth-century Normandy than of Puri- 
tan New England. With the decline of the fur trade, a 
new order of things slowly grew up. 

There being little legal machinery west of Lake 
Michigan, before Wisconsin Territory was erected, 
local government was slow to establish itself. Nothing 
but the good temper and stout common sense of the 
people prevented anarchy, under such a condition of 
affairs. For many years, the few public enterprises 
were undertaken at private expense. At Green Bay, 
schools were thus conducted, as early as 1817. In 182 1 
the citizens of that village raised a fund by popular 
subscription, and built a jail ; and eleven years later, 
they asked the legislature of Michigan Territory to 
pay for it. There were some Territorial taxes levied in 
18 1 7, but the gathering of them was not very success- 
ful. The first county to levy a tax was Crawford, of 

171 



172 

which Prairie du Chien was the seat, but considerable 
difficulty appears to have been experienced in collect- 
ing the money. 

Finally, Wisconsin Territory was organized, and the 
legislature assembled (1838) in Madison, the new capi- 
tal. The accommodations at that raw Httle woodland 
village were meager, even for pioneer times. The Terri- 
torial building of stone, and a few rude frame and log 
houses in the immediate neighborhood, were all there 
was of the infant city. Only fifty strangers could be 
decently lodged there, and a proposition to adjourn to 
Milwaukee was favored. But as the lake-shore metrop- 
olis, also a small village, could offer no better accommo- 
dations, it was decided to stay at the capital, and brave 
it out on the straw and hay mattresses, of which, how- 
ever, there were not enough to supply the demand. 

This was long before railroads had reached Wiscon- 
sin. Travel through the new Territory was by boat, 
horseback, or a kind of snow sledge called a ** French 
train." There were no roads, except such as had been 
developed from the old deep-worn Indian trails which 
interlaced the face of the country, and traces of which 
can still be seen in many portions of the State. The 
pioneers found that these trails, with a little straighten- 
ing, often followed the best possible routes for bridle 
paths or wagon roads. It was not long before they 
were being used by long lines of teams, transporting 
smelted lead from the mines of southwest Wisconsin to 
the Milwaukee and Galena docks ; on the return, 
they carried supplies for the ''diggings," and sawmill 
machinery into the interior forests. Farmers' wagons 



173 

and stagecoaches followed in due time. Bridges were 
but slowly built; the unloaded wagons were ferried 
across rivers in Indian " dugout " canoes, the horses 
swimming behind, and the freight being brought over 
in relays. 

In 1837 there was a financial crisis throughout the 
country, and this checked Western immigration for a 
few years. But there was not enough money in Wis- 
consin for bank failures materially to affect the people ; 
so, when the tide of settlement again flowed hither, the 
Badgers were as strong and hopeful as ever. 

People coming to Wisconsin from the East often 
traveled all the way in their own wagons ; or would 
take a lake boat at Buffalo, and then proceed by water 
to Detroit, Green Bay, or Chicago, thence journeying 
in caravans to the interior. 

Frontier life, in those days, was of the simplest char- 
acter. The immigrants were for the most part used to 
hard w^ork and plain fare. Accordingly the privations 
of their new surroundings involved relatively little hard- 
ship, although sometimes a pioneer farmer was fifty 
or a hundred miles from a gristmill, a store, or a post 
office, and generally his highway thither was but a 
blazed bridle path through the tangled forest. 

Often his only entertainments throughout the year 
were "bees" for raising log houses or barns for new- 
comers, and on these occasions all the settlers for scores 
of miles around would gather in a spirit of helpful com- 
radery. Occasionally the mail carrier, either afoot or 
on horseback, would wash accommodation over night. 
Particularly fortunate was the man who maintained a 



174 



river ferry at the crossing of some much-frequented 
trail ; he could have frequent chats with strangers, and 
collect stray shillings from mail carriers or other trav- 
elers whose business led them through the wilderness. 

Often the new settler brought considerable flour and 
salt pork with him, in his journey to the West; but it 
was not at first easy to get a fresh supply. Curiously 
enough, although in the midst of a wild abundance, 
civilized man at the outset sometimes suffered for the 
bare necessaries of life. As soon, however, as he could 
garner his first crop, and become accustomed to the 
new conditions, he was usually proof against disaster 
.J J /T ■. of this kind ; fish and game were so abundant, in 
K[a/ ^^ their season, that in due time the backwoodsman 




the 



was able to win a wholesome livelihood from 
storehouse of nature. 

Satisfactory education for youth was a plant of 
comparatively small growth. At first there 
was not enough money in the country to 
pay competent teachers. The half-educated 
sons and daughters of the pioneers 
taught the earliest schools, 
often upon a private sub- 
scription basis; text-books 
were few, appliances 
generally wanting, 
and the results 
were, for many 
years, far from 
satisfactory. As 
for spiritual in- 







175 

struction, this was given by itinerant missionary preach- 
ers and priests, of various denominations, who braved 
great hardships while making their rounds on horse- 
back or afoot, and deserve to rank among the most 
daring of the pioneer class. In due time churches and 
schools v/ere firmly established throughout the Territory. 

In addition to these farmer colonists, there came 
many young professional and business men, chiefly 
from New York and New England, seeking an open- 
ing in the new Territory for the acquisition of fame 
and wealth. Many of these were men of marked 
ability, with high ambition and progressive ideas, who 
soon took prominent part in molding public opinion 
in the young Wisconsin. There are, all things con- 
sidered, no abler, more forceful men in the Wisconsin 
of to-day than were some of those, now practically all 
passed away, who shaped her destinies in the fourth 
and fifth decades of the nineteenth century. 

The sessions of the legislature were the principal 
events of the year. Prominent men from all over 
Wisconsin were each winter attracted to Madison, as 
legislators, lobbyists, or visitors, crowding the primitive 
little hotels and indulging in rather boisterous gayety ; 
for humor in those pioneer days was often uncouth. 
There was overmuch "horseplay," hard drinking, and 
profanity ; and now and then, as the result of a warm 
discussion, a tussle with fists and canes. 

The newspapers were given to rude personal attacks 
upon their enemies ; one would suppose, to read the 
columns of the old journals, that editors thought it 
their chief business in life to carry on a wordy, bitter 



176 

quarrel with some rival editor or politician. But this 
was largely on the surface, for effect. As a matter of 
fact, strong attachments between men were more fre- 
quent then than now. There was a deal of dancing 
and miscellaneous merrymaking at these legislative 
sessions ; and travelers have left us, in their letters 
and journals, statements which show that they greatly 
reUshed the experience of tarrying there on their 
winter journeys across the Territory, and of being 
entertained by the good-hearted villagers. 

Pioneers, in their stories of those early years, are 
fond of calling them the '* good old times," and styHng 
present folk and manners degenerate. No doubt there 
was a certain charm in the rude simplicity of frontier 
life, but there were, as well, great inconveniences and 
rude discomforts, with which few pioneers of our day 
would wish to be confronted, after having tasted the 
pleasures arising from the wealth of conveniences of 
every sort which distinguishes these latter days. As 
far back in time as human records go, we ever find 
old men bewailing prevalent degeneracy, and sighing in 
vain for '' the good old times " when they were young. 
It is a blessing given to the old that the disagree- 
able incidents of their youth should be forgotten, and 
only the pleasant events remembered. As a matter of 
fact, we of to-day may well rejoice that, while Wiscon- 
sin enjoyed a lusty youth, she has now, in the fullness 
of time, grown into a great and ambitious common- 
wealth, lacking nothing that her sisters own, in all that 
makes for the prosperity and happiness of her people. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROADS 

WHEN white men first came to our land, the 
Indian trails formed a network of narrow, deep- 
sunken paths over the face of the country, as they con- 
nected village with village, and these with the hunting 
and fishing resorts of the aborigines. Many of the 
most important trails simply followed the still earlier 
tracks of the buffalo, which in great herds wandered 
from plain to plain, in search of forage, or in hiding 
from man, through the dark forest and over the hills. 
The buffalo possessed an unerring instinct for selecting 
the best places for a road, high ridges overlooking the 
lowlands, and the easy slopes of hills. In the Far 
West, they first found the passes over the Rockies, just 
as, still earlier, they crossed the Alleghanies by the 
most favorable routes. 

The Indian followed in the footsteps of the buffalo, 
both to pursue him as game, and better to penetrate 
the wilderness. The white man followed the well- 
defined Indian trail, first on foot, then on horseback ; 
next (after straightening and widening the curving 
path), by freight wagon and by stagecoach ; and then, 
many years later, the railway engineer often found his 
best route by the side of the developed buffalo track, 

STO. OF BADGER STA. — 12 1 77 



1/8 

especially in crossing the mountain ranges. The Union 
Pacific and the Southern Pacific railways are notable 
examples of lines which have simply followed well- 
worn overland roads, which were themselves but the 
transcontinental buffalo paths of old. 

An interesting story might be written concerning the 
development of the principal Indian trails in Wisconsin 
into the wagon roads of the pioneers, and some of these 
into the military roads made by the federal government 
for the marching of troops between the frontier forts. 
Without fairly good roads, at least during the winter 
and summer nionths, it would have been impossible for 
Wisconsin to grow into a great State ; for good roads 
are necessary to enable settlers, tools, and supplies to 
get into the country, and to afford an outlet for crops. 
For this reason, in any newly settled region, one of the 
first duties of the people is to make roads and bridges. 

We have still much to do in Wisconsin, before we 
can have such highways as they possess in the old 
eastern States. In many parts of our State, the coun- 
try roads in the rainy seasons are of little credit to us. 
But the worst of them are much better than were some 
of the best in pioneer days, and some of our principal 
thoroughfares between the larger cities are fairly good. 

The federal government set a good example by hav- 
ing its soldiers build several mihtary roads, especially 
between Forts Howard (Green Bay), Winnebago (Port- 
age), and Crawford (Prairie du Chien). In Territorial 
and early Statehood days, charters were granted by the 
legislature for the building and maintenance of certain 
toUroads between large towns ; some of these were 



179 

paved with gravel or broken stone, others with planks. 
Many of the plank roads remained in use until about 
1875; but before that date all highways became the 
property of the public, and tollgates were removed. 
Bridges charging tolls are still in use in some parts of 
the State, where the people have declined to tax them- 
selves for a public bridge, which therefore has been 
built by a private company in consideration of the priv- 
ilege of collecting tolls from travelers. 

Early in the year when Wisconsin Territory was 
erected (1836), and while it was still attached to Michi- 
gan Territory, there was a strong movement, west of 
Lake Michigan, in favor of a railway between Mil- 
waukee and Prairie du Chien, connecting the lake with 
the Mississippi River. Congress was petitioned by the 
legislative council of Michigan to make an appropria- 
tion to survey the proposed line. There were as yet 
very few agricultural settlers along the route ; the chief 
business of the road was to be the shipment of lead 
from the mines of the southwest to the Milwaukee 
docks ; thence it was to be carried by vessels to Buffalo, 
and sent forward in boats, over the Erie Canal, to the 
Hudson River and New York. 

This was in January ; in the September following, 
after Wisconsin Territory had been formed, a pubHc 
meeting was held in Milwaukee, to petition the Territorial 
legislature to pass an act incorporating a company to 
construct the proposed lead-mine road, upon a survey 
to be made at the expense of the United States, and 
there was even some talk of another road to the far- 
away wilderness of Lake Superior. 



i8o 

But this early railway project was premature. Wis- 
consin had then but twenty-two thousand inhabitants, 
and Milwaukee was a small frontier village. Then 
again, railroading in the United States was still in its 
infancy. In Pennsylvania there was a small line, 
hardly better than an old-fashioned horse car track, 
over which a wheezy little locomotive slowly made 
occasional trips, and the Baltimore and Ohio railway 
had not long before experimented with sails as a motive 
power. It is not surprising, therefore, that Congress 
acted slowly in regard to the overambitious Wisconsin 
project, and that it was nearly fourteen and a half years 
before a railway was actually opened in this State. 

Indeed, many people thought at that time that 
canals, costing less in construction and in operation, 
were more serviceable for Wisconsin than railways. 
The people of northern Wisconsin were particularly 
eager for canals ; in the southern part, railways were 
most popular. The most important canal project was 
that known as the Fox and Wisconsin rivers improve- 
ment. From the earliest historic times, these two 
opposite-flowing rivers, whose waters approach within 
a mile and a half of each other at Portage, had been 
used as a boat route between the Great Lakes and the 
Mississippi River. We have seen, in preceding chap- 
ters, w^hat an important part was played by this 
route in the early history of Wisconsin. But when 
large vessels became necessary to the trade of the 
region, and steam navigation was introduced, it was 
found that the historic water way presented many prac- 
tical difficulties : the Fox abounds in rapids below 



ISI 



Lake Winnebago, and in its upper waters is very 
shallow: the Wisconsin is troubled with shifting sand 
bars. In order to accommodate the traffic, a canal 
was necessary along the portage path, and extensive 
improvements in both rivers were essential. 




As early as 1839, Congress was asked to aid in 
this work, and from time to time such aid has been 
given. But, although several millions of dollars have, 
through all these years, been spent upon the two 
streams, there has been no important modern naviga- 
tion through them between the Great Lakes and the 
great river. The chief result has been the admirable 
system of locks between Lake Winnebago and Green 



I«2 



Bay, making available the splendid water power of the 
lower valley of the Fox. 

Another water way project was that of the Milwau- 
kee and Rock River Canal. This was designed to 
connect the waters of the Milwaukee and Rock rivers, 
thereby providing an additional way for vessels to pass 
from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi. A company 
was incorporated, with a capital of a million dollars, and 
Congress made a large grant of land to Wisconsin Terri- 
tory. But after some years of uncertainty and heavy 
expense the project was abandoned as impracticable. 

The Territorial legislature began to charter railway 
companies as early as 1836, but the Milwaukee and 
Mississippi was the first road actually built. The track 
was laid in 185 1 and a train w^as run out to Waukesha, 
a distance of twenty miles. In 1856 the line reached 
the Mississippi. This was the modest beginning of 
the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul system. 

The Chicago and Northwestern Railway entered Wis- 
consin from Chicago about the same time (1855). 
Numerous small lines were built before the War of 
Secession, nearly all of them being soon swallowed 
up by the larger companies. During the war, there 
was stagnation in railway building, but when peace was 
declared there was renewed activity, and to-day Wis- 
consin is as well provided with good railways as any 
State of its size and population in the Union. 



THE PHALANX AT CERESCO 

IN the fourth decade of the nineteenth century there 
was much agitation, both in France and America, 
over the teachings of a remarkable man named Fran- 
cois Marie Charles Fourier. He claimed that if people 
would band themselves together in communities, in the 
proper spirit of mutual forbearance and helpfulness, 
and upon plans laid down by him, it would be proved 
that they could get along very well with no strife of any 
sort, either in business, or religion, or politics. Then, 
if the nations would but unite themselves in the same 
way, universal peace would reign. 

During the stirring times of the French Revolution 
and of the great Napoleon, there had been much social 
agitation of the violent sort. A reaction had come. 
The talk about the rights of man was no longer con- 
fined to the violent, revengeful element of the popula- 
tion ; it was now chiefly heard among the good and 
gentle folk, among men of wealth and benevolence, 
as well as those of learning and pover-ty. 

In France, Fourier was the leader among this new 
class of socialists. In France, England, and Holland, 
colonies more or less after the Fourier model were 
established ; and it was not long before communities 

183 



1 84 

came to be founded in the United States. The most 
famous of these latter was Brook Farm, in Massachu- 
setts, because among its members were several well- 
known authors and scientists, who wrote a great deal 
about their experiences there. But the only commu- 
nity in America conducted strictly on Fourier's plan, 
flourished in Wisconsin. 

The New York Tribune, edited by Horace Greeley, 
a noted reformer, was earnest in advocating Fourierism, 
as it was called, doing much to attract attention to 
''the principle of equitable distributions." One of the 
many readers of the Tribune was Warren Chase, of 
Kenosha, a young New Hampshire man, thirty years 
of age, who became much attached to the new idea. 

This was during the winter of 1843-44. Chase 
gathered about him at Kenosha a group of intelligent 
men and women, some of whom had property, and they 
formed a stock company, incorporated under the laws 
of Wisconsin Territory, but based strictly on the plans 
laid down by Fourier. 

Having purchased six hundred acres of government 
land, in a gentle valley within the present Ripon town- 
ship, in Fond du Lac county, nineteen pioneers, led by 
Chase, made their way thither in May. There were 
no railroads in those days, and the little company pro- 
ceeded overland through flower-decked prairies, and 
over wooded hills, in oxcarts and horse wagons, with 
droves of cattle, and tools and utensils. 

The reformers called their colony ''Ceresco," after 
Ceres, the goddess of agriculture. Plowing was com- 
menced, buildings were erected, shops and forges estab- 



i85 

lished. Very soon some two hundred men, women, and 
children had arrived, and in due time many branches 
of industry were in full operation. 

The Ceresco community was, as suggested by Fou- 
rier, styled a *' phalanx." The members were classi- 
fied, according to their capacity to labor, in educational, 
mechanical, and agricultural series, each series being 
divided into groups. The government was headed by 
a president and nine councilors ; each series had a 
chairman, and each group a foreman. 

Labor was voluntary, the shops being owned by the 
community at large ; while the land was divided equally 
among all the members, old and young, save that no 
family might possess over forty acres. As the com-- 
m unity grew, more land was purchased for their use. 
The council laid out the work to be done, or the policy 
to be pursued. When there was a question to be 
decided, the series interested voted upon it ; but in 
some important cases, the matter was referred for final 
action to the several groups. Each person received 
pay according to his value as a worker, the record 
being kept by the foreman of his group. They were 
not paid upon the same scale ; for instance, the mem- 
bers of the council and the school-teachers received 
more than skilled mechanical laborers, and these in 
turn more than ordinary workmen. 

The phalanx at first lived in temporary quarters, and 
a year later erected a large building ''four hundred feet 
in length, consisting of two rows of tenements, with 
a hall between, under one roof." Each family lived 
in its own compartments, but all ate in common at 



^6 



a boarding house called the "phalanstery," where a 
charge was made of seventy-five cents a week for 
each person. The "unitary" was a large building 
used for business and social meetings, these being 
held in the evenings ; each Tuesday evening the Hter- 
ary and debating club met, Wednesday evening the 
singing school, and Thursday evening a dancing party. 

Unlike many other communities, the Fourier colonies 
were not religious in character. Each member of the 
phalanx at Ceresco might worship as he pleased. At 
various times, for the membership fluctuated somewhat, 
ministers of different denominations were members of 
the colony, and frequently there were visits from wan- 
dering missionaries. 

None of the colonists were allowed to use intoxicat- 
ing liquors as a beverage. There must be no vulgar 
language, swearing, or gambling ; and one of the 
by-laws commanded that " censoriousness and fault- 
finding, indolence, abuse of cattle or horses, hunting or 
fishing on the first day of the week, shall be deemed 
misdemeanors, and shall be punishable by reprimand or 
expulsion." These punishments were the only ones 
which the community could inflict upon its members, 
for it had no judicial powers under the law. 

But there was small need of punishments at Ceresco. 
Its members were, as a rule, men and women of most 
excellent character. There was never any dishonesty, 
or other serious immorality, within the phalanx ; the 
few neighboring settlers regarded the reformers with 
genuine respect. All the proceedings of the community 
were open, and its carefully kept accounts and records 



i87 

might be inspected by any one at any time. When- 
ever charges were brought against a member, they 
were laid before the full assembly at the next weekly 
meeting ; a week elapsed before consideration, in order 
to give ample opportunity for defense ; then the entire 
body of colonists, women as w^ell as men, voted on 
the question, acquitting the offender or reprimanding 
him or, by a two-thirds vote, expelling him from the 
phalanx. 

Wisconsin was then sparsely settled at best ; the 
peaceful little valley of Ceresco was equally far re- 
moved from the centers of population at Green Bay 
and in the southern portion of the Territory. Yet many 
pioneers came toiling over the country, to apply for ad- 
mission to this Garden of Eden. But it is recorded 
that not one in four was taken into fellowship, for the 
phalanx desired " no lazy, shiftless, ne'er-do-well mem- 
bers," and only those believed to be wise, industrious, 
and benevolent w^ere taken into the fold. 

And thus the Ceresco phalanx seemed mightily -to 
prosper. Its stock earned good dividends, its property 
was in excellent condition, the quality of its member- 
ship could not be bettered. Far and near were its 
praises sung. The jViw York Tribjuie gave weekly 
news of its doings, and was ever pointing to it as 
worthy of emulation ; the Brook Farm paper hailed it 
as proof that socialism had at last succeeded. 

Had each member been equally capable with his fel- 
lows, had the families been of the same size, had there 
been no jealousies, no bickerings, had these good folk 
been without ambition, had they, in short, been con- 



tented, the phalanx might have remained a success. 
They were clothed, fed, and housed at less expense 
than were outsiders ; they had many social enjoyments 
not known elsewhere in the valley ; and, according to 
all the philosophers, should have been a happy people. 

The public table, the public amusement rooms, and 
all that, had at first a spice of pleasant novelty ; but 
soon there was a realization that this had not the 
charm of home life, that one's family affairs were too 
much the affairs of all. The strong and the willing 
saw that they were yoked to those who were weak and 
slothful ; there was no chance for natural abilities to 
assert themselves, no reward for individual excellence. 

Wisconsin became a State in 1848. Everywhere, 
ambitious and energetic citizens in the rapidly growing- 
commonwealth were making a great deal of money 
through land speculations and the planting of new in- 
dustries, everywhere but in Ceresco, where the com- 
munity life allowed no man to rise above the common 
level. The CaUfornia gold fields, opened the following 
year, also sorely tempted the young men. The mem- 
bers of the phalanx found themselves hampered by 
their bond. Caring no longer for the reformation of 
society, they eagerly clamored to get back into the 
whirl of that struggle for existence which, only a few- 
years before, they had voted so unnecessary to human 
welfare. 

In 1850 the good folk at Ceresco voted Unanimously, 
and in the best of feeling toward one another, to dis- 
band their colony. They sold their lands at a fair 
profit to each ; and very soon, in the rush for- wealth 



1 89 



and for a chance to exercise their individual powers, 
were widely distributed over the face of the country. 
Some of them ultimately won much worldly success ; 
others fell far below the level of prosperity maintained 
in the phalanx, and came to bemoan the " good old 
days " of the social community, when the strong were 
obliged to bolster the weak. 







A MORMON KING 

IN the year 1843 there came from New York to the 
village of Burlington, Racine county, an eccentric 
young lawyer named James Jesse Strang. Originally 
a farmer's boy, he had been a country school-teacher, 
a newspaper editor, and a temperance lecturer, as well 
as a lawyer. Possessed of an uneasy, ambitious spirit, 
he had wandered much, and changed his occupation 
with apparent ease. Strang was passionately fond of 
reading, was gifted with a remarkable memory, and de- 
veloped a fervent, persuasive style of oratory, which he 
delighted in employing. He often astonished the courts 
by the shrewd eloquence with which he supported 
strange, unexpected points in law. It is related of him 
that, soon after he came to Wisconsin, he brought a 
suit to recover the value of honey which, he claimed, 
had been stolen from his client's hives by the piratical 
bees of a neighbor, and his arguments were so plausi- 
ble that he nearly won his case. 

In less than a year after his arrival in Burlington, 
the village was visited by some Mormon missionaries. 
They came from Nauvoo, Illinois, on the banks of the 
Mississippi River, where there was a settlement of so- 
called Latter-Day Saints, who lived under the sway of 

190 



191 

a designing knave named Joseph Smith. Strang at 
once became a convert, and entered into the movement 
with such earnestness that, with his oratory, his abil- 
ity to manage men, and his keen zest for notoriety, he 
became one of the most prominent followers of the 
faith. 

Six months after Strang's conversion, Joseph Smith, 
the president and prophet of the Mormons, was killed 
by an Illinois mob. At once there arose a desperate 
strife among the leaders, for the successorship to Jo- 
seph. Two of the number, Brigham Young and Strang, 
were men of ability, and the contest soon narrowed 
down to them. Young had the powerful support of 
the council of the church, known as ''the twelve apos- 
tles " ; but Strang produced a letter said to have been 
written by Joseph just before his death, in which 
Strang was named as his successor, with directions to 
lead the Mormons to a new " city of promise " in Wis- 
consin, to be called ''Voree." 

The " apostles " at Nauvoo denounced Strang as 
an impostor, declared that his letter was a forgery, 
and attacked him bitterly in their official newspapers, 
published at Nauvoo and at Liverpool, England. But 
Strang was not easily put down. A great many of 
the fanatics at Nauvoo believed in this impetuous 
young leader, who defended his cause with tact and 
forceful eloquence ; and for a time it looked as if he 
might win. 

However, in the end the '* apostles " had their way, 
and the adroit Young was elected to the headship of 
the church. Strang at once called forth his followers, 



192 

and in April, 1845, planted the "City of Voree " upon 
a prairie by the side of White River, in Walworth 
county, Wisconsin. It soon became a town of nearly 
two thousand inhabitants, who owned all things in com- 
mon, but were rvded over, even in the smallest affairs 
of life, by the wily President Strang, who claimed to 
be divinely instructed in every detail of his rigorous 
government. 

The people dwelt " in plain houses, in board shanties, 
in tents, and sometimes, many of them, in the open air." 
Great meetings were held at Voree, and the surround- 
ing settlers gathered to hear Strang and his twelve 
"apostles" lay down the law, and tell of the revelations 
which had been deHvered to them by the Almighty. 
Strang, who closely imitated the methods of Joseph, 
pretended to discover the word of God in deep-hidden 
records. Joseph had found the Book of Mormon 
graven upon plates dug out of the hill of Cumorah, in 
New York ; so Strang discovered buried near Voree 
similar brazen plates bearing revelations, written in the 
rhythmic style of the Scriptures, which supplemented 
those in the Book of Mormon. 

President Strang was a very busy man as the head 
of the Voree branch of the Mormon church. He ob- 
tained a printing outfit, and published a little weekly 
paper called Gospel Herald, besides hundreds of pam- 
phlets, all written by himself, in which he assailed the 
" Brighamites " in the same violent manner as they 
attacked him in their numerous publications. He also, 
with his missionaries, conducted meetings in Ohio, New 
York, and other States in the East, gathering converts 



193 

for Voree, and boldly repelling the wordy attacks of 
the Brighamites, whose agents were working the same 
fields. 

Despite some backslidings, and occasional quarrels 
within its ranks, Voree grew and prospered. By 1849 
there was a partially built stone temple there, which is 
thus described by an imaginative letter writer of the 
time : " It covers two and one-sixth acres of ground, 
has twelve towers, and the great hall two hundred feet 
square in the center. The entire walls are eight feet 
through, the floors and roofs are to be marble, and when 
finished it will be the grandest building in the world." 

Nevertheless, it was early seen by Strang that the 
growing opposition of neighboring settlers would in 
the end cause the Mormons to leave Wisconsin, just 
as the Nauvoo fanatics were compelled (in 1846) to flee 
from Illinois, to plant their stake in the wilderness of the 
Far West. 

He therefore made preparations for a place of refuge 
for his people, when persecutions should become unbear- 
able. In journeying by vessel, upon one of his missions, 
he had taken note of the isolation of an archipelago of 
large, beautiful, well-wooded islands near the foot of 
Lake Michigan. The month of May, 1846, found him 
with four companions upon Beaver Island, in this far- 
away group. They built a log cabin, arranged for a 
boat, and returned to Voree to prepare for the migration 
of the faithful. 

The new colony at first grew slowly, but by the sum- 
mer of 1849 the "saints" began to arrive in goodly 
numbers. Strang himself now headed the settlement; 

STO. OF BADGER STA. — 1 3 



194 



and thereafter Voree ceased to be headquarters for the 
" Primitive Mormons," as they called themselves, 
although a few remained in the neighborhood. 

Very soon, about two thousand devotees were 
gathered within the " City of St. James," on Beaver 
Island, with well-tilled farms, neat houses, a sawmill, 
roads, docks, and a large temple. A hill near by they 
renamed Mount Pisgah, and a River Jordan and a Sea 
of Galilee were not far away. 

One beautiful day in July, 1850, Strang, arrayed in a 
robe of bright red, was, with much ceremony, crowned 
by his " apostles " as *' King of the Kingdom of St. 
James." Foreign ambassadors were appointed, and a 
royal press was set up, for the flaying of his enemies. 
Schools and debating clubs were opened ; the com- 
munity system was abolished ; tithes were collected for 
the support of the government ; tea, coffee, and tobacco 
were prohibited ; and even the dress of the people was 
regulated by law. Never was there a king more abso- 
lute than Strang; doubtless, for a time, he thought 
his dream of empire realized at last, and that here in 
this unknown corner of the world the '* saints " might 

remain forever unmolested. 
l*SS^C/c^> ^^^t t^^ sylvan archipelago, and Beaver 
'^''^m /^^^te.,.,^ ^ Island itself, had other inhabit- 

'•- ■ IS li^^^^^^^^^^^ ants; these were rude, 

sturdy, illiterate fisher- 
men, who Hved in 
huts along the coast, 
ff and had little pa- 
tience with the fan- 




195 

tastic performances of their neighbors, King Strang 
and the court of St. James. His majesty had, also, 
jealous enemies among his own subjects. 

Trouble soon ensued. The fishermen frequently 
assaulted the *' saints," and carried on a petty warfare 
against the colony at large, in which the county sheriff 
was soon engaged ; for false charges came to be entered 
against these strange but inoffensive people, and they 
were now and then thrown into jail. The king, there- 
upon, in self-defence, "went into politics." Having so 
many votes at his command, he easily secured the elec- 
tion of Mormons to all the county offices, and of him- 
self to the legislature of Michigan. 

But despite these victories over outside foes, matters 
at home went from bad to worse. The enemies in his 
camp multiplied, for his increasingly despotic rule gave 
them abundance of grievances. At last, about the mid- 
dle of June, 1856, two of the malcontents shot their 
monarch from behind. He was taken by vessel to his 
old home in Voree, where he was tenderly cared for 
until his death, a month later, by his poor, neglected 
wife, who had remained behind when he went forth to 
the island. His kingdom did not long survive him. 
The unruly fishermen came one day with ax and torch, 
leveled the royal city to the ground, and banished the 
frightened ''saints." 

To-day the White River prairie gives no evidence of 
having once borne the city of Zion, and even in the 
Michigan archipelago there remain few visible relics of 
the marvelous reign of King Strang. 



THE WISCONSIN BOURBON 

TWO years after Louis the XVI., Bourbon king 
of France, and his beautiful queen, Marie Antoi- 
nette, were beheaded by the revolutionists in Paris, in 
the closing decade of the eighteenth century, their 
imbecile child of eight years, called the " dauphin," 
was officially reported to have died in prison. But the 
story was started at the time, and popularly believed, 
that the real dauphin, Louis the XVII., had been 
stolen by the royalists, and another child cunningly 
substituted to die there in his place. The story went 
that the dauphin had been sent to America, and that 
all traces of him were lost ; thus was given to any ad- 
venturer of the requisite age, and sufficiently obscure 
birth, an opportunity to seek such honor as might be 
gained in claiming identity with the escaped prisoner. 

Great was the excitement in the United States, when, 
in 1853, it was confidently announced by a New York 
magazine writer that the long lost prince had at last 
been discovered, in the person of the middle-aged Elea- 
zer Williams, an Episcopal missionary to the Oneida 
Indians at Little Kaukauna, in the lower valley of the 
Fox. 

The Bonaparte family, represented by Louis Napo- 
leon, were just then in control of France ; but the Bour- 

196 



197 

bon family, of which Louis the XVI I., were he 
aUve, would naturally be the head, considered them- 
selves rightful hereditary masters of that country. Of 
course, there was at the time no opportunity for any 
Bourbon actually to occupy the French throne ; but the 
people of that country are highly emotional, revolutions 
have been numerous among them, and displaced royal- 
ists are always hoping for some turn in affairs which 
may enable them once more to gain the government. 
It was this possible chance of the Bourbons getting into 
power once more, that added interest to the story. 

Let us see what sort of person this Eleazer Williams 
of Wisconsin was, and how it came about that he made 
the assertion that he was the head of the Bourbons, and 
an uncrowned king. It had heretofore been supposed 
by every one who knew him that he was the son of 
Mohawk Indian parents, both of whom had white blood 
in their veins, living just over the New York border, in 
Canada. Certain CongregationaUsts had induced this 
couple to allow two of their sons, Thomas and Eleazer, 
to be educated in New England as missionaries to the 
Indians ; and for several years they attended academies 
there, becoming fairly proficient in EngHsh, although 
their aboriginal manners were not much improved. 

At last returning to his Canadian home, Eleazer neg- 
lected his Congregational benefactors, and soon became 
interested in the Episcopal Church. He would have 
become one of its missionaries at once, but just at that 
time the War of i8 12-15 broke out; and instead he 
became a spy in the pay of the United States, convey- 
ing to his employers important information concerning 



198 

the movements of British troops in Canada. When the 
war was over, having, as an American spy, incurred the 
dishke of the Canadian Mohawks, he was sent as an 
Episcopal missionary to the Oneida Indians, then Uving 
in Oneida county, New York. 

WiUiams appears to have differed from the ordinary 
Indian type, although he was thickset, dark haired, 
and swarthy of skin. Some took him to be a Spaniard ; 
others there were who thought him French ; and com- 
ments which he had heard, concerning his slight re- 
semblance to the pictures of the Bourbons, doubtless 
caused Eleazer in later years to pretend to be the lost 
dauphin. He was a fair orator, and in his earlier years 
succeeded well in persuading the simple red men about 
him. ^ His plausible manner, and this ease of persuasion, 
finally led him astray. 

The Oneida Indians in New York and their neigh- 
bors (formerly from New England), the Munsees, Stock- 
bridges, and Brothertowns, were just then being crowded 
out of that State. A great company had acquired the 
right from the federal government to purchase the lands 
held by these Indians, whenever they cared to dispose 
of them. In order to hurry matters, the company 
began to sow among the poor natives the seeds of 
discontent. 

Certain of their leaders, among them Williams, advo- 
cated emigration to the West. It appears that Wil- 
liams, who was a born intriguer, conceived the ambitious 
idea of taking advantage of this movement to estabhsh 
an Indian empire in the country west of Lake Michi- 
gan, with himself as dictator. 



199 

Moved by the clamor of the red men, the federal 
government sent a delegation to Wisconsin, in 1820, to 
see whether the tribes west of the lake would consent 
to accept the New York Indians as neighbors. This 
delegation was headed by Dr. Jedediah Morse, a cele- 
brated geographer and missionary. Morse visited 
Mackinac and Green Bay, and returned with the report 
that the valley of the lower Fox was the most suitable 
place in which to make a settlement. That very sum- 
mer, Williams himself, with several other headmen, had 
on their own account journeyed as far as Detroit on 
a similar errand, but returned without discovering a 
location. 

The owners of the land selected by Morse were the 
Menominees and Winnebagoes, with whom WilHams 
and his followers held a council at Green Bay, the fol- 
lowing year. A treaty was signed, by which the New 
York Indians were granted a large strip of land, four 
miles wide, at Little Chute. 

The ensuing year (1822), at a new council held at 
Green Bay, the New Yorkers asked for still more land. 
The Winnebagoes, much incensed, withdrew from the 
treaty, but the Menominees were won over by WilUams's 
eloquence, and granted an extraordinary cession, mak- 
ing the New York Indians joint owners with themselves 
of all Menominee territory, which then embraced very 
nearly a half of all the present State of Wisconsin. 

Ten years of quarreling followed, for there was at 
once a reaction from this remarkable spirit of gener- 
osity. In 1832 there was concluded a final treaty, ap- 
parently satisfactory to most of those concerned, and 



200 

soon thereafter a large number of New York Indians 
removed hither. The Oneidas and Munsees estabUshed 
themselves upon Duck Creek, near the mouth of the 
Fox, and the Stockbridges and Brothertowns east of 
Lake Winnebago. As for Williams, the jealousies and 
bickerings among his people soon caused him to lose 
control over them, thus giving the deathblow to his 
wild dreams of empire. 

During the next twenty years, in which he continued 
to serve as a missionary to the Wisconsin Oneidas, 

Williams was a well-known 
and picturesque charac- 
ter. His home was 
on the west bank 
• of the river, about a 
mile below Little Kau- 
kauna. Although a man 
of much vigor and strength of mind, he soon came to 
be recognized as an unscrupulous fellow by the ma- 
jority of both whites and reds in the lower Fox, and 
his clerical brethren. East as well as West, appear to 
have regarded him with more or less contempt. 

Baffled in several fields of notoriety which he had 
worked, WilHams suddenly posed before the American 
public, in 1853, as the hereditary sovereign of France. 
He was too young by eight years' to be the lost dau- 
phin ; that he was clearly of Indian origin was proved 
by a close examination of his color, form, and feature ; 
his dusky parents protested under oath that the way- 
ward Eleazer was their son ; every allegation of his in 
regard to the matter has often been exposed as false; 




201 

and all his neighbors who knew him treated his claims 
as fraudulent. 

Nevertheless, he succeeded in deceiving a number of 
good people, including several leading clergymen of his 
church ; one of the latter attempted in an elaborate 
book, "The Lost Prince," to prove conclusively that 
Williams was indeed the son of the executed monarch. 

The pretensions of Eleazer Williams, who dearly 
loved the notoriety which this discussion awakened, 
extended through several years. They even won some 
little attention in France, but far less than here, for 
several other men had claimed to be the lost dauphin, so 
that the pretension was not a new one over there. Louis 
Philippe, the head of the Bourbon-Orleans family in 
France, sent him a present of some finely bound books, 
believing him the innocent victim of a delusion ; but, 
further than that, and a chance meeting at Green Bay, 
between Eleazer Williams and another French royal- 
ist, the Prince de Joinville, then on his travels through 
America, the family in France paid no attention to the 
adventurous half-breed American Indian who claimed 
to be one of them. 

The reputation of Williams as a missionary had at 
last fallen so low, and the neglect of his duties was so 
persistent, that his salary was withdrawn by the Epis- 
copal Church, and his closing years were spent in 
poverty. He died in 1858, maintaining his absurd 
claims to the last. 



SLAVE CATCHING IN WISCONSIN 

THERE had been a few negro slaves in Wisconsin 
before the organization of the Territory and dur- 
ing Territorial days. They had for the most part 
been brought in by lead miners from Kentucky and 
Missouri. But, as the population increased, it was 
seen that public opinion here, as in most of the free 
States, was strongly opposed to the practice of hold- 
ing human beings as chattels. Gradually the dozen 
or more slaves were returned to the South, or died 
in service, or were freed by their masters ; so that, at 
an early day, the slavery question had ceased to be 
of local importance here. 

As the years passed on, and the people of the 
North became more and more opposed to the slave 
system of the South, the latter lost an increasing 
number of its slaves through escape to Canada. They 
were assisted in their flight by Northern sympa- 
thizers, who, secretly receiving them on the north 
bank of the Ohio River, passed them on from friend 
to friend until they reached the Canadian border. As 
this system of escape was contrary to law, it had to 
be conducted, by both white rescuers and black fugi- 
tives, with great privacy, often with much peril to 
life ; hence it received the significant, popular name 



203 

J 
of "The Underground Railroad." Wisconsin had but 

small part in the working of the underground rail- 
road, because it was not upon the usual highway 
between the South and Canada. But our people took 
a firm stand on the matter, sympathizing with the 
fugitive slaves and those who aided them on their 
way to freedom. 

When, therefore. Congress, in 1850, at the bidding 
of the Southern politicians, passed the Fugitive Slave 
Law, Wisconsin bitterly condemned it. This act was 
designed to crush out the underground railroad. It 
provided for the appointment, by federal courts, of 
commissioners in the several States, whose duty it 
should be to assist slaveholders and their agents in 
catching their runaway property. The unsupported 
testimony of the owner or agent was sufficient to 
prove ownership, the black man himself having no 
right to testify, and there being for him no trial by 
jury. The United States commissioners might en- 
force the law by the aid of any number of assistants, 
and, in the last resort, might summon the entire 
population to help them. There were very heavy 
penalties provided for violations of this inhuman law. 

The Fugitive Slave Law was denounced by most of 
the political conventions held in our State that year. 
In his message to the legislature, in January, 185 1, 
Governor Dewey expressed the general sentiment when 
he said that it " contains provisions odious to our peo- 
ple, contrary to our sympathies, and repugnant to our 
feelings." But it was three years before occasion 
arose for Wisconsin to act. 



204 



In the early months of 1854, a negro named Joshua 
Glover appeared in Racine, and obtained work in a 
sawmill four miles north of that place. On the night 
of the loth of March, he was playing cards in his 
little cabin, with two other men 
of his race. Suddenly there 
appeared at the door seven 
well-armed white men, 
— two United States 
deputy marshals from 
Milwaukee, their four 
assistants from Ra- 
cine, and a St. 
Louis man named 
Garland, who 
claimed to be Glov- 
er's owner. 

A desperate 
struggle followed, 
the result being that 
Glover, deserted by 
his comrades and 
knocked senseless by 
a blow, was placed in 
chains by his captors. 
Severely bleeding from his wounds, he was 
thrown into an open wagon and carted across country 
to the Milwaukee county jail, for the man hunters 
feared to go to Racine, where the antislavery feeling 
was strong. It was a bitter cold night, and Glover's 
miseries were added to by the brutal Garland, who 




205 

at intervals kicked and beat the prisoner, and prom- 
ised him still more serious punishment upon their 
return to the Missouri plantation. 

The news of the capture was not long in reaching 
Racine. The next morning there was held in the city 
square a public meeting, attended by nearly every 
citizen, at which resolutions w^ere passed denouncing 
the act of the kidnapers as an outrage ; demanding 
for Glover a trial by jury; promising "to attend in 
person to aid him, by all honorable means, to secure 
his unconditional release " ; and, most significant of all, 
resolving that the people of Racine " do hereby de- 
clare the slave catching law of 1850 disgraceful and 
also repealed." There were many such nullifying 
resolutions passed in those stirring days by mass meet- 
ings throughout the country, but this was one of the 
earliest and most outspoken. That afternoon, on hear- 
ing where Glover had been imprisoned, a hundred 
indignant citizens of Racine, headed by the sheriff, 
went by steamer to Milwaukee, arriving there at five 
o'clock. 

Meanwhile, Milwaukee had been active. News of 
the capture had not been circulated in that city until 
eleven o'clock in the morning. One of the first to 
learn of it was Sherman M. Booth, the energetic editor 
of a small antislavery paper, the IViscoiisiii Free Devio- 
erat. Riding up and down the streets upon a horse, 
he scattered handbills, and, stopping at each crossing, 
shouted : " Freemen, to the rescue ! Slave catchers are 
in our midst ! Be at the courthouse at two o'clock ! " 

Prompt to the hour, over five thousand people assem- 



206 

bled in the courthouse square, where Booth and several 
other " liberty men " made impassioned speeches. A 
vigilance committee was appointed, to see that Glover 
had a fair trial, and the county judge issued in his 
behalf a writ of habeas corpus, calling for an immediate 
trial, and a show of proofs. But the federal judge, 
A. G. Miller, forbade the sheriff to obey this writ, hold- 
ing that Glover must remain in the hands of the United 
States marshal, in whose custody he was placed by vir- 
tue of the Fugitive Slave Law. 

The local militia were called out to suppress the dis- 
order, but they were without power. It soon became 
noised about that Glover was to be secretly removed to 
Missouri. This made the mob furious. Just at this 
time the Racine contingent arrived, adding oil to the 
flames. The reenforced crowd now marched to the jail, 
attacked the weak structure with axes, beams, and 
crowbars, rescued the fugitive just at sunset, and 
hurried him off. An underground railroad agency took 
the poor fellow in charge, and soon placed him aboard 
a sailing vessel bound for Canada, where he finally 
arrived in safety. 

Throughout Wisconsin the rescue was approved by 
the newspapers and public gatherings. Sympathetic 
meetings were also held in other States, at which reso- 
lutions applauding the action of Booth and his friends, 
and declaring the slave catching law unconstitutional, 
were passed with much enthusiasm. There was also 
held at Milwaukee, in April, a notable State conven- 
tion, with delegates from all of the settled parts of the 
commonwealth ; this convention declared the law un- 



207 

constitutional, and formed a State league for furnish- 
ing aid and sympathy to the Glover rescuers. 

In 1857, as a result of the Glover affair, the Wis- 
consin legislature passed an act making it a duty of 
district attorneys in each county *' to use all lawful 
means to protect, defend, and procure to be discharged 
. . . every person arrested or claimed as a fugitive 
slave," and throwing around the poor fellow every 
possible safeguard. Such was Wisconsin's final pro- 
test against the iniquity of the Fugitive Slave Law. 

Naturally, Booth had been looked upon by the 
United States marshal as the chief abettor of the 
riot. He was promptly arrested for violating a federal 
law by aiding in the escape of a slave ; but the State 
supreme court promptly discharged him on a writ of 
habeas corpus. Thereupon he was brought before the 
federal court, but again the State court interfered in 
his favor, because of a technical irregularity. 

On the first of these occasions, the State court issued 
a very remarkable decision upon State rights, that at- 
tracted national attention at a time when this question 
was violently agitating the public mind. It declared, 
after a clear, logical statement of the case, that the 
Fugitive Slave Law was "unconstitutional and void" 
because it conferred judicial power upon mere court 
commissioners, and deprived the accused negro of the 
right of trial by jury. One of the justices of the 
court, in an individual opinion, went still further : he 
held that Congress had no power to legislate upon this 
subject; that "the States will never quietly submit to 
be disrobed of their sovereignty" by "national func- 



208 

tionaries " ; that the police power rested in the State 
itself, which would not " succumb, paralyzed and aghast, 
before the process of an officer unknown to the consti- 
tution, and irresponsible to its sanctions " ; and that so 
long as he remained a judge, Wisconsin would meet 
such attempts with " stern remonstrance and resistance." 

The federal court reversed this action, and again 
arrested Booth in i860, but he was soon pardoned by 
the President, and met with no further trouble on 
account of the Glover affair. 

As for the people of Racine, they made Hfe rather 
uncomfortable for the men who had assisted the Mil- 
waukee deputy marshals in arresting Glover. The city 
became a fiercer hotbed of abolition than ever before, 
and several times thereafter aided slaves to escape from 
bondage. Fortunately for their own good, as well as 
for the cause of law and order, they found no further 
occasion to take the law into their own hands, in the 
defense of human liberty. 




THE STORY OF A FAMOUS CHIP:F 

ONE of the best-known Indians with whom Wiscon- 
sin Territorial pioneers were thrown into personal 
contact was Oshkosh, the last of the Menominee 
sachems, or peace chiefs. It is worth while briefly 
to relate the story of his career, because it was the 
life of a typical Indian leader, at the critical time 
when the whites were coming into the country in such 
numbers as to crowd the reds to the wall. 

Oshkosh was born in 1795, at Point Bas, on the Wis- 
consin River. Cha-kau-cho-ka-ma (meaning Old King), 
the peace chief of the Menominees at that time, was 
his maternal grandfather. The war chief was Glode, 
the orator of the tribe, and a mighty hunter. The 
Old King lived until 1826, but Glode died in 1804, 
his successor being Tomah (the French pronunciation 
of Thomas, his English name). 

In the War of 1 812-15, a large band of Wisconsin 
Indians joined the ranks of Tecumseh, in raiding upon 
the American borderers. The principal Menominee 
chiefs were Tomah, Souligny, Grizzly Bear, and lome- 
tah, and among the young men was Oshkosh. 

Their first expedition was against Fort Mackinac, in 
1812, that stronghold being captured from the Ameri- 

S)TU. OF BADGER S lA. — 1 4 2O9 



210 

cans without bloodshed. Among white men, such an 
enterprise would not seem to offer much opportunity 
for the display of personal bravery ; but savage and 
civilized standards of courage differ, and young Osh- 
kosh appears to have satisfied the old men upon this 
occasion, so that he then received the name by which 
we know him, meaning in the Menominee tongue, 
'* brave." 

By the following May, Oshkosh, now in his nine- 
teenth year, and prominent among the young warriors, 
went out with Souligny and Tomah, and joined Tecum- 
seh in the siege of Fort Meigs at the rapids of the 
Maumee River. Later, during the same summer, he 
was engaged in the memorable British-Indian siege of 
Sandusky. The succeeding year he was one of a large 
party of Menominees assisting the British to repel a 
fierce but futile American attempt to recapture Fort 
Mackinac. This was his last campaign, for peace 
between Great Britain and the United States soon fol- 
lowed. 

Oshkosh, now living upon the lands of the tribe in 
northeastern Wisconsin, appears to have passed a quiet 
existence, after his exploits of 1812-15. Lacking the 
stimulus of war, he maintained a state of artificial 
excitement by the use of fire water, and soon won a bad 
reputation in this regard. But he was not wholly de- 
based. Few in council had more power than he. 
Although he was slow to speak, his opinion when 
given had much weight, because of a firm, resolute 
tone, beside which the impassioned flights of Tomah 
and SouHgny often failed in effect. 



2TI 



When the Old King died without any sons, a contest 
arose over the successorship to the chieftaincy. In 
many tribes there would have been no question about 
the election of Oshkosh, for he was the son 
of Old King's daughter ; but the Menom- 
inees did not recognize 
any heirship except 
through sons. So many 
claimants arose, each 
determined to fight for 
the position, that the 
United States govern- 
ment feared an out- 
break of civil war 
within the tribe, with 
possible injuries to 
the neighboring white 
settlers. 

Hence a court of 
claims was organ- 
ized, to choose a chief 
among the contest- 
ants. This court, 
headed by Governor 
Lewis Cass, of Michi- 
gan Territory, met at 

Little Butte des Morts (near Neenah) in August, 1827, 
and selected Oshkosh. Cass, in the presence of the 
tribesmen, hung a medal about the neck of the victor, 
shook hands with him, and ordered a feast in honor of 
the event. 




212 

The first five years of the reign of this dusky chief- 
tain were peaceful enough, so far as relations with other 
tribes were concerned. But within the Menominee vil- 
lages there were frequent drunken frolics, which some- 
times ended in bloodshed or in endless disputes between 
famihes ; and in these disturbances, which often greatly 
alarmed the white settlers, Oshkosh had his full 
share. 

When in June, 1832, the great Sac leader. Black 
Hawk, was harassing the settlements in northern Illi- 
nois and southern Wisconsin, while being slowly driven 
northward by the white troops, fears were entertained 
in the valley of the lower Fox that he would turn 
toward Green Bay. With the hope of preventing this, 
a force of three hundred Menominee Indians was 
recruited there, and sent to the seat of war, officered 
by American and French residents. Oshkosh headed 
his people, but arrived too late to do any fighting; 
Black Hawk had already been vanquished by white 
soldiers, at the battle of the Bad Ax. Oshkosh and his 
braves found no more savage foe than a small party of 
Sacs, old men and women and children, flying from the 
battlefield, and these they promptly massacred, proudly 
carrying the scalps back with them to Green Bay. 

Four years later, the Menominees sold all of their 
lands in Wisconsin to the federal government, and 
were placed upon the reservation at Keshena, where 
they still five. 

In 1840, the little four-year-old white settlement at 
the junction of the upper Fox with Lake Winnebago 
thought itself large enough to have a post office, hence 



213 

the necessity for adopting a permanent name. The 
place had at first been known to travelers as Stanley's 
Tavern, because here a man named Stanley ran a ferry 
across Fox River, and kept a log hotel. Then the 
Green Bay merchants fell into the habit of marking 
"Athens" on boxes and bales which the boatmen car- 
ried up to Stanley's. 

When the question arose over the name for the 
post office, there were several candidates, ** Osceola," 
'' GaleopoHs," and "Athens" being prominent. Rob- 
ert Grignon, a French fur trader at Grand Butte des 
Morts, desiring to be on good terms with his Menomi- 
nee neighbors, proposed "Oshkosh." Thereupon party 
spirit ran high. Upon a day named, a popular elec- 
tion without distinction of race was held at the office of 
the justice of the peace, who provided a free dinner to 
the voters ; among them were a score of Indians, 
brought in by Grignon. Several ballots were taken, 
between which speeches were made in behalf of the 
rivals. " Oshkosh " finally won, chiefly by the votes 
of Grignon's Indians. Harmony was soon restored, 
and the election ended in drink and smoke, after the 
fashion of border 'gatherings in those days. 

We hear little more of old chief Oshkosh, until fifteen 
years later. In the year 1852 occurred a kidnaping 
case, which became famous in the frontier annals of 
Wisconsin. Nahkom, a Menominee squaw, was accused 
of having stolen a little white boy, the son of Alvin Par- 
tridge, of the town of Neenah, in Winnebago county. 
The Indians stoutly denied the truth of this accusation ; 
indeed, Partridge himself failed to recognize his lost son 



214 

in the person of Nahkom's boy. But the relatives and 
neighbors of Partridge were confident as to the identity, 
and the bereaved father was induced to ask aid of the 
courts in obtaining the child. 

The case hung fire for three years, the courts always 
deciding in favor of Nahkom, although Partridge re- 
gained temporary possession of the boy under writs of 
habeas corpus. Finally, pending the decision of a Mil- 
waukee judge upon the application for a writ, the little 
fellow was placed in the jail of that city. From there 
the Partridges kidnaped him and fled to Kansas, leaving 
poor Nahkom childless, for undoubtedly it was a case of 
mistaken identity, and the child was really hers. Ulti- 
mately the boy was found and restored to her. 

This was in 1855. Oshkosh and a number of Me- 
nominee headmen went at once to Milwaukee, upon 
learning of the jail delivery, and laid their complaints 
before the judge. Recognizing the press as a medium 
of communication with the public, Oshkosh and Sou- 
ligny also visited the editor of the Sentinel, asking him 
to state their grievance and plead their cause. The 
speech which Oshkosh made to the editor was given in 
full in that paper, and is a good specimen of the direct, 
earnest method in Indian oratory. 

He said, among other things : " Governor Dodge told 
us that our great father [the President] was very strong, 
and owned all the country; and that no one would dare 
to trouble us, or do us wrong, as he would protect us. 
He told us, too, that whenever we got into difficulty or 
anything happened we did not like, to call on our great 
father and he would see justice done. And now we 



215 

come to you to remind our great father, through your 
paper, of his promise, and to ask him to fulfil it. . . . 
We thought our child safe in the jail in the care of the 
officers ; that none could get the child away from them 
unless the law gave them the right. We cannot but 
think it must have been an evil spirit that got into the 
jail and took away our child. We thought the white 
man's law strong, and are sorry to find it so weak." 
Upon the conclusion of his visit, Oshkosh and his 
friends returned to their reservation, determined never 
again to mingle with the deceitful and grasping whites. 
Upon their way home to Keshena, Oshkosh stopped 
at the thriving little city which had been christened 
for him, and expressed pride at having so large a name- 
sake. It was his first and only visit. Three years later 
he died in a drunken brawl, aged sixty-three years. He 
was a good Indian, as savages go, his chief vice being 
one borrowed from the whites, who forced themselves 
upon his lands and contaminated him and his people. 



A FIGHT FOR THE GOVERNORSHIP 

BETWEEN the time when Wisconsin became a 
state (1848), and the opening of the War of 
Secession (1861), party feeUng ran high within the 
new commonwealth. Charges of corruption against 
pubHc officials were freely made ; many men sought 
office for the plunder supposed to be obtained by 
those '' inside the ring " ; newspaper editors appeared 
to be chiefly engaged in savage attacks on the repu- 
tations of those who differed from them, and general 
political demoralization was prevalent. When, how- 
ever, important issues arose out of the discussions of 
the strained relations between North and South, a 
higher and more patriotic tone was at once evident, 
and this has ever since been maintained in Wisconsin 
politics. 

The most striking event of the years of petty par- 
tisan strife which preceded the war, was the fight for 
the governorship of the State, between WilUam A. 
Barstow and Coles Bashford. 

Barstow, a Democrat from Waukesha county, had 
been secretary of state during Governor Dewey's sec- 
ond term (1850-51). Owing to bitterness occasioned 
by the rejection of the first State constitution, the 

216 



217 




COLES BASHFORD 



Democratic party in Wisconsin was torn into factions, 
at the head of one of which was Barstow. While serv- 
ing as secretary of state, he made 
many enemies, who freely accused 
him of rank official dishonesty, and 
associated him with the corrupt 
methods of the early railway com- 
panies which were just then seek- 
ing charters from the legislature. 
Nevertheless, like all strong, positive 
men, he had w^on for himself warm 
friends, who secured his election as 
governor for the year 1854-55. 

His enemies, however, grew in number, and their 
accusations increased in bitterness. His party renomi- 
nated him for governor ; but he had lost ground during 
the term, and could not draw out his full party strength 
in the November election of 1855. Besides, the new 
Republican party, although as 
yet in the minority, was making 
, .. ^ rapid strides, and voted solidly 

ijl ^ ^y for its nominee, Bashf ord, a Win- 

nebago county lawyer. As a 
result, the voting for governor 
proved so close that for a full 
month no one knew the outcome. 
Meanwhile there was, of course, 
much popular excitement, with 
charges of fraud on both sides. 

Finally, in December, the State board of canvassers 
met at Madison. It consisted of the secretary of 





WILLIAM A. BARSTOW 



2l8 

state, the State treasurer, and the attorney-general, all 
of them Barstow men. Their report was that he had 
received one hundred fifty-seven more votes than his 
opponent. The Republicans at once advanced the 
serious charge that the canvassers had deliberately 
forged supplemental returns from several counties, pre- 
tending to receive them upon the day before the count. 
Large numbers of people soon came to believe that 
fraud had been committed, and Bashford prepared for 
a contest. 

Upon the day in early January when Barstow was 
inaugurated at the capitol, with the usual military dis- 
play, Bashford stepped into the supreme court room 
and was quietly sworn in by the chief justice. There- 
upon Bashford appealed to the court to turn Barstow 
out, and declare him the rightful governor. 

There followed a most remarkable lawsuit. The 
constitution provides that the State government shall 
consist of three branches, legislative, judicial, and 
executive. It was claimed that never before in the his- 
tory of any of the States in the Union had one branch 
of the government been called upon to decide between 
rival claimants to a position in another branch. Bar- 
stow's lawyers, of course, denied the jurisdiction of the 
court to pass upon the right of the governor to hold 
his seat ; for, they argued, if this were possible, then 
the judiciary would be superior to the people, and 
no one could hold office to whom the judges were not 
friendly. There was a fierce struggle, for several 
weeks, between the opposing lawyers, who were among 
the most learned men of the State, with the result 



219 

that the court decided that it had jurisdiction ; and, on 
nearly every point raised, ruled in favor of the Bash- 
ford men. 

Before the decision of the case, Barstow and his 
lawyers withdrew, declaring that the judges were in- 
fluenced against them by political prejudices. How- 
ever, the court proceeded without them, and declared 
that the election returns had been tampered with, and 
that Bashford really had one thousand nine majority. 
He was accordingly declared to have been elected 
governor. 

This conclusion had been expected by Barstow, who, 
determined not to be put out of office, resigned his 
position three days before the court rendered its dq.ci- 
sion. Immediately upon Barstow's resignation, his 
friend, the lieutenant governor, Arthur McArthur, took 
possession of the office. He claimed that he was now 
the rightful governor, for the constitution provides that 
in the event of the resignation, death, or inability of 
the governor, the lieutenant governor shall succeed 
him. But the supreme court at once ruled that, as 
Barstow's title was worthless, McArthur could not suc- 
ceed to it, a logical view of the case which the Bar- 
stow sympathizers had not foreseen. 

It was upon Monday, March the 24th, that the court 
rendered its decision. Bashford announced that he 
would take possession of the office upon Tuesday. 
There had been great popular uneasiness in Madison 
and the neighboring country, throughout the long strug- 
gle, and the decision brought this excitement to a crisis. 
Many of the adherents of both contestants armed them- 



220 

selves and drilled, in anticipation of an encounter which 
might lead to civil war within the State. There were 
frequent wordy quarrels upon the streets, and threats 
of violence ; and many supposed that it would be im- 
possible to prevent the opposing factions from fighting 
in good earnest. 

Affairs were in this critical condition upon the fateful 
Tuesday. Early in the day people began to arrive in 
Madison from the surrounding country, as if for a popu- 
lar fete. The streets and the capitol grounds were filled 
with excited men, chiefly adherents of Bashford ; they 
cheered him loudly as he emerged from the supreme 
court room, at eleven o'clock, accompanied by the 
sheriff of the county, who held in his hand the order 
which awarded the office to Bashford. 

Passing through the corridors of the capitol, now 
crowded with his friends, Bashford and the sheriff 
rapped upon the door of the governor's office. Mc- 
Arthur and several of his friends were inside ; a voice 
bade the callers enter. The new governor was a large, 
pleasant-looking man. Leisurely taking off his coat 
and hat, he hung them in the wardrobe, and calmly 
informed McArthur that he had come to occupy the 
governor's chair. 

"Is force to be used in supporting the order of the 
court .^" indignantly asked the incumbent, as, glancing 
through the open door, he caught sight of the eager, 
excited crowd of Bashford's friends, whose leaders with 
difficulty restrained them from at once crowding into 
the room. 

"I presume," blandly replied Bashford, ''that no 



221 



force will be essential ; but in case any is needed, 
there will be no hesitation whatever in applying it, 
with the sheriff's help." 

McArthur at once calmed down, said that he "con- 
sidered this threat as constructive force," and promptly 
left his rival in possession. As he hurried out, through 
rows of his political enemies, the corridors were ringing 
with shouts of triumph ; and in a few moments Bash- 
ford was shaking hands with the crowd, who, in the 
highest glee, swarmed through his office. 

The legislature was divided in political sentiment. 
The senate received the nev/ governor's message with 
enthusiasm, and by formal resolution congratulated him 
upon his success. The assembly at first refused, thirty- 
eight to thirty-four, to have anything to do with him ; 
but upon thirty of the Democrats withdrawing, after 
filing a protest against the action of the court, the 
house agreed, thirty-seven to nine, to recognize Gov- 
ernor Bashford. Thereafter he had no trouble at the 
helm of State. 



OUR FOREIGN-BORN CITIZENS 

IT is probable that no other State in the Union contains 
so many varieties of Europeans as does Wisconsin. 
About seventeen per cent of our entire population were 
born in Germany ; next in numbers come the Scandina- 
vians, natives of Great Britain, Irish, Canadians, Poles, 
Bohemians, Hollanders, Russians, and French. 

These different nationalities are scattered all over the 
State ; often they are found grouped in very large neigh- 
borhoods. Sometimes one of these groups is so large 
that, with the American-born children, it occupies entire 
townships, and practically controls the local churches 
and schools, which are generally conducted in the for- 
eign tongue. There are extensive German, Scandina- 
vian, and Welsh farming districts in our State where 
one may travel far without hearing English spoken by 
any one. Some crowded quarters of Milwaukee are 
wholly German in custom and language ; and there are 
other streets in that city where few but Poles, Bohemi- 
ans, or Russians can be found. 

Although these foreign-born people, as is quite natu- 
ral, generally cling with tenacity to the language, the 
religion, and many of the customs in which they were 
reared, it is noticeable that all of them are eager to learn 



223 

our methods of government, and to become good citi- 
zens ; and their children, when allowed to mingle freely 
with the youth of this country, become so thoroughly 
Americanized that httle if any difference can be distin- 
guished between them and those whose forefathers have 
lived here for several generations past. 

There is, how^ever, hardly a family in Wisconsin which 
is not of European origin. Some of us are descended 
from ancestors who chanced to come to the New World 
at an earlier period than did the ancestors of others of 
our fellow-citizens ; that is all that distinguishes these 
''old American fa^milies " from those more recently 
transplanted. 

It is a very interesting study to watch the gradual 
evolution of a new American race from the mingling 
on our soil of so many different nationalities, just as 
the English race itself was slowly built up from the old 
Britons, Saxons, Norsemen, and Norman French. But 
we must remember that this ''race amalgamation," 
although now proceeding upon a larger scale than 
was probably ever witnessed before, has always been 
going on in America since the earliest colonial days, 
when English, French, Hollanders, Swedes, Scotch, and 
Irish were fused as in a melting pot, for the production 
of the American types that w^e meet to-day. 

A variety of reasons induced foreigners to come to 
Wisconsin in such large numbers ; they may, however, 
be classified under three heads, political, economic, and 
religious. The political reason was dissatisfaction with 
the government at home, chiefly because it repressed 
all aspiration for liberty and forced young men to sac- 



224 

rifice several of the best years of their lives by spending 
them in the army. The most powerful economic reason 
was inability to earn a satisfactory Hving in the father- 
land, because worn-out soils, low prices for produce, 
overcrowding of population, and excessive competition 
among workmen resulted in starvation wages. The re- 
ligious reason was the disposition of European mon- 
archs to interfere with men's right to worship God as 
they pleased. 

In 1830 there were serious political troubles in Ger- 
many, and thousands of dissatisfied people emigrated 
from that country to America. Many of the newcomers 
were young professional men of fine education and lofty 
ideals. In those early days American society was some- 
what crude, especially upon the frontier. These spirited 
young Germans complained that, both in religion and 
politics, the life of our people was sordid and low, with 
little appreciation for the higher things of life ; and es- 
pecially did they resent our popular lack of appreciation 
of their countrymen. 

Therefore, in 1835, there was formed in New York a 
society called '' Germania," which was to induce enough 
Germans to settle in some one of the American States 
to be able to gain control of it and make it a German 
State, with German Hfe and manners, with German 
schools, literature, and art, with German courts and 
assembhes, and with German as the official language. 
A great deal of discussion followed, as to which State 
should be chosen; some preferred Texas, others Oregon, 
but most of the members wished some State in what 
was then called the Northwest, between the Great Lakes 



225 

and the Mississippi River. The society disbanded with- 
out result ; but the agitation to which it gave rise was con- 
tinued throughout many years on both sides of the ocean. 

Wisconsin was strongly favored by most of the Ger- 
man writers on immigration, especially about the time 
that it became prominent through being admitted to 
the Union (1848). Nothing came of all this agitation 
for a German State, except the very wide advertising 
which Wisconsin obtained in Germany, as a State ad- 
mirably suited for Germans, in soil, chmate, liberal con- 
stitution, and low prices for lands, and as possessing 
social attractions for them, because it had early obtained 
an unusually large German population. 

The counties near Milwaukee were the first to receive 
German settlers. This movement began about 1839, 
and was very rapid. Soon after that, Sauk and Dane 
counties became the favorites for new arrivals. Next, 
immigrants from Germany went to the southwestern 
counties, about Mineral Point, and northward into the 
region about Lake Winnebago and the Fox River. By 
1 84 1 they had spread into Buffalo county, and along 
the Mississippi River; but since i860 they have chiefly 
gone into the north central regions of the State, gen- 
erally preferring forest lands to prairies. The first 
arrivals were mainly from the valley of the Rhine ; 
next in order, came people from southern Germany; 
but the bulk of the settlers are from the northern and 
middle provinces of their native land. 

The principal Swiss groups in Wisconsin are in Green, 
Buffalo, Sauk, Fond du Lac, and Taylor counties. That 
at New Glarus, in Green county, is one of the most 

STO. OV BADGER STA. — I5 



226 

interestingo In the sterile little mountainous canton 
of Glarus, in Switzerland, there was, about 1844, niuch 
distress because of over population ; the tillable land 
was insufficient to raise food for all the people. It 
was, therefore, resolved by them to send some of their 
number to America, as a colony. 

Two scouts w^ere first dispatched, in the spring of 
1845, with instructions to find a climate, a soil, and 
general characteristics as nearly like Switzerland as 
possible. These agents had many adventures as they 
wandered through Ohio, Indiana, and lUinois, before 
finally selecting Green county, Wisconsin, as the place 
best suited for their people. 

It was supposed that those left behind would wait 
until a report could be sent back to them. But one 
hundred ninety-three of the intending emigrants soon 
became restless, and started for America only a month 
later than the advance guard. The party had a long 
and very disagreeable journey, down the Rhine River 
to the seaport, where after many sore trials they 
obtained a vessel to take them across the Atlantic. 
This ship was intended for the accommodation of only 
one hundred forty passengers ; but nearly two hundred 
crowded into it, and had a tempestuous and generally 
disheartening passage of forty-nine days, with insuffi- 
cient food. 

At last, reaching Baltimore, they proceeded by canal 
boat to the foot of the Alleghanies, crossed the moun- 
tains by a crude railway, and then embarked in a 
steamer down the Ohio River, bound for St. Louis. 
After their arrival at that city, there ensued a long and 



22/ 



vexatious search for the scouts, who, not expecting them, 
had left few traces behind. But perseverance finally won, 
and by the middle of August all of these weary colo- 
nists were reunited in the promised land of New Glarus, 
five thousand miles away from their native valleys. 

The experience of the first few years was filled with 
privations, because these poor Swiss, fresh from narrow 
fields and small shops at home, did not comprehend the 
larger American methods of farming, with horse and 
plow. But, by the kindness of their American neigh- 
bors, they finally learned their rude lessons ; and, soon 
adopting the profitable business of manufacturing Swiss 
cheese, by thrift and industry they in time succeeded 
in making of New Glarus one of the most prosperous 
agricultural regions in Wisconsin. 

It is estimated that in Green county there are now 
eight thousand persons of Swiss birth, or the descend- 
ants of Swiss, about one-third of the entire popula- 
tion. The language which they still use in business 
affairs is the German-Swiss dialect. 

The first Norwegian immigrants to America arrived 
in 1825, after some strange adventures on 
the ocean, and settled in the 
State of New York ; this 
was before Wisconsin was 
ready for settlers. From 
1836 to 1845, thousands of 
Norwegians came to Illinois 
and Wisconsin, their first settle- 
ment in Wisconsin being made in 
1844, in the towm of Albion, Dane county. They are 




FIRST NORWEGIAN CHURCH 



228 

now scattered quite generally over the State, in large 
groups, with hundreds of ministers and churches, and 
many newspapers ; but they are still strongest in Dane 
county, where, probably, there are not less than four- 
teen thousand who were either born in Norway or are 
the children of Norwegian-born parents. 

The Belgians are closely massed in certain towns of 
Door, Kewaunee, and Brown counties, in the north- 
eastern portion of the State. The beginning of their 
immigration was in 1853, when ten families of the 
province of Brabant, in Belgium, determined to move 
to America, where they could win a better support 
for themselves, and suitably educate their children. 
The vessel in which they crossed the Atlantic was 
forty-eight days in sailing from Antwerp to New 
York, the passage being tedious and rough, accom- 
panied by several terrific hurricanes. The poor pilgrims 
suffered from hunger and thirst, as well as sickness, 
and lost one of their number by death. 

It was while on board ship that the majority decided 
to settle in Wisconsin, and upon landing, hither they 
promptly came. Arriving in Milwaukee, they knew 
not what part of the State was best suited for them ; 
but began to prospect for land, and finally settled 
near Green Bay, simply because a large portion of 
the population of that village could speak French, 
which was their own language. At first they had de- 
termined to locate near Sheboygan, but were annoyed 
at not being able to make themselves understood by the 
inhabitants of that place. The Httle band of Belgians 
was at last established within rude log huts, in the 



229 

heart of a dense forest, ten miles from any other human 
habitation, without roads or bridges, or even horses or 
cattle. They experienced the worst possible inconven- 
iences and hardships naturally appertaining to life in 
the frontier woods, and for the first year or two the 
colony seemed in a desperate condition. Its hopeful 
members, however, hiding their present misery, sent 
cheerful letters home, and enticed their old neighbors 
either to join them, or to form new settlements in the 
neighborhood. In due time, the Belgians of northeastern 
Wisconsin became prosperous farmers and merchants. 

Similar tales might be related, of the great difficulties 
and hardships bravely overcome by several other for- 
eign groups in Wisconsin : for instance, the Poles, 
the Dutch, the Welsh, the Bohemians, the Cornish- 
men of the lead-mine region, and the Icelandic fishermen 
of lonely Washington Island. But the foregoing will 
suffice to show of what sturdy stuff our foreign-born 
peoples are made, and cause us to rejoice that such 
material has gone into the upbuilding of our common- 
wealth. 



SWEPT BY FIRE 

BEFORE the great inrush of agricultural settlers, in 
1836, most of the surface of Wisconsin was cov- 
ered with dense forests. In the northern portion of 
the State, pines, hemlocks, and spruce predominated, 
mingled with large areas of hard wood ; elsewhere, 
hard wood chiefly prevailed, the forests in the south- 
ern and eastern portions being frequently broken by 
large prairies and by small treeless *' openings." 

In the great northern pine woods, lumbermen have 
been busy for many years. They leave in their wake 
great wastes of land, some of it covered with dead 
branches from the trees that have been felled and 
trimmed ; some so sterile that the sun, now allowed to 
enter, in a rainless summer bakes the earth and dries 
the spongy swamps ; while all about are great masses 
of dead stumps, blasted trunks, and other forest debris. 
Settlers soon pour in, purchase the best of this cut-over 
land, and clear the ground for farms. But there are 
still left in Wisconsin great stretches of deforested 
country, as yet unsettled ; some of these areas are 
worthless except for growing new forests, an enterprise 
which, some day, the State government will undertake 
for the benefit of the commonwealth, 

230 



231 




Now and then, in dry seasons, great fires start upon 
these ''pine barrens," or ''slashings," as they are called, 
and spread until often they cause great loss to life and 
property. These conflagrations originate in many ways, 
chiefly from the carelessness of hunters or Indians, in 
their camps, or from sparks from locomotives, or bon- 
fires built by farmers for the destruction of rubbish. 

Nearly every summer and autumn these forest fires 
occur more or less frequently in northern Wisconsin, 
working much damage in their neighborhoods; but 
usually they exhaust themselves when they reach a 
swamp, a river, or cleared fields. When, however, 
there has been an exceptionally long period of drought, 
everything in the cut-over lands becomes excessively 



232 

dry ; the light, thin soil, filled with dead roots and 
encumbered by branches and stumps, becomes as in- 
flammable as tinder ; the dried-up marshes generate 
explosive gases. 

The roaring flames, once started in such a season, 
are fanned by the winds which the heat generates, and, 
gathering strength, roll forward with resistless impe- 
tus ; dense, resinous forest growths succumb before 
their assault, rivers are leaped by columns of fire, and 
everything goes dowm before the destroyer. In a holo- 
caust of this character, all ordinary means of fire fight- 
ing are in vain ; the houses and barns of settlers feed 
the devouring giant, whole towns are swept away, until 
at last the flames either find nothing further upon which 
to feed, or are quenched by a storm of rain. 

The most disastrous forest conflagration which Wis- 
consin has known, occurred during the 8th and 9th of 
October, 1871. There had been a winter with little 
snow, and a long, dry summer. Fires had been 
noticed in the pine forests which line the shores of 
Green Bay, as early as the first week in September. 
At first they did not create much alarm ; they smoul- 
dered along the ground through the vegetable mold, 
underbrush, and ''slashings," occasionally eating out 
the roots of a great tree, which, swayed by the wind, 
would topple over with a roar, and send skyward a 
shower of sparks. 

Gradually the " fire belt " broadened, and, finding 
better fuel, the flames strengthened ; the swamps 
began to burn, to a depth of several feet ; over hun- 
dreds of square miles the air was thick and stifling 



233 

with smoke, so that the sun at noonday appeared like 
a great copper ball set on high ; at night the heavens 
were lurid. Miles of burning woods were everywhere 
to be seen ; hundreds of haystacks in the meadows, and 
great piles of logs and railroad ties and telegraph poles 
were destroyed. 

For many weeks the towns along the bay shore were 
surrounded by cordons of threatening flame. The peo- 
ple of Pensaukee, Oconto, Little Suamico, Sturgeon 
Bay, Peshtigo, and scores of other settlements, were 
frequently called out by the fire bells to fight the in- 
sidious enemy ; many a time were they apparently 
doomed to destruction, but constant vigilance and 
these occasional skirmishes for a time saved them. 

Reports now began to come in, thick and fast, of 
settlers driven from blazing homes, of isolated sawmills 
and lumber camps destroyed, of bridges consumed, of 
thrilling escapes by lumbermen and farmers. On 
Sunday, the 8th of October, a two days' carnival of 
death began. In Brown, Kewaunee, Oconto, Door, 
Manitowoc, and Shawano counties the flames, suddenly 
rising, swept everything within their path. Where thriv- 
ing, prosperous villages once had stood, blackened wastes 
appeared. Over a thousand lives were lost, nearly as 
many persons were crippled, and three thousand were 
in a few hours reduced to beggary. The horrors of the 
scenes at New Franken, Peshtigo, and the Sugar Bush, 
in particular, were such as cannot be described. 

This appalling tragedy chanced to occur at the same 
time as vast prairie fires in Minnesota, and the terrible 
conflagration which destroyed Chicago. The civilized 



234 

world stood aghast at the broad extent of the field of 
needed relief ; nevertheless, the frenzied appeals for 
aid, issued in behalf of the Wisconsin fire sufferers, 
met with as generous a response as if they alone, in 
that fateful month of October, were the recipients of 
the nation's bounty. Train loads of clothing and 
provisions, from nearly every State in the Union, soon 
poured into Green Bay, which was the center of distri- 
bution ; the United States government made large gifts 
of clothing and rations; nearly two hundred thousand 
dollars were raised, and expended under official control ; 
and great emergency hospitals were opened at various 
points, for the treatment of sick and wounded. 

As for the actual financial loss to the people of the 
burned district, that could never be estimated. The 
soil was, in many places, burned to the depth of sev- 
eral feet, nothing being left but sand and ashes ; grass 
roots were destroyed; bridges and culverts were gone; 
houses, barns, cattle, tools, seed, and crops were no 
more. It was several years before the region began 
again to exhibit signs of prosperity. 

In the year 1894, forest fires of an appalling magni- 
tude once more visited Wisconsin, this time in the 
northwestern corner of the State. Again had there been 
an exceptionally dry winter, spring, and summer. The 
experience gained by lumbermen and forest settlers 
had made them more cautious than before, and more 
expert in the fighting of fires ; but that year was one in 
which no human knowledge seemed to avail against the 
progress of flames once started on their career of dev- 
astation. 



235 

During the summer, several fires had burned over 
large areas. By the last week of July, it was estimated 
that five milHon dollars' worth of standing pine had 
been destroyed. The burned and burning area was 
now over fifty miles in width, the northern limit being 
some forty miles south of Superior. Upon the 27th 
of the month, the prosperous town of Phillips, wholly 
surrounded by deforested lands, was suddenly licked 
up by the creeping flames, the terrified inhabitants 
escaping by the aid of a railway train. Neighboring 
towns, which suffered to a somewhat less degree, were 
Mason, Barronett, and Shell Lake. 

In 1898 Wisconsin was again a heavy sufferer from 
the same cause. The fires were chiefly in Barron 
county, upon the 29th and 30th of September. Two 
hundred fifty-eight families were left destitute, and the 
loss to land and property was estimated at $400,000. 
Relief agencies were established in various cities of the 
state, and our people responded as liberally to the 
urgent call for help as they had in 1871 and 1894. 

A more competent official system of scientifically 
caring for our forests, restricting the present wasteful 
cutting of timber, and preventing and fighting forest 
fires, would be of incalculable benefit to the State of 
Wisconsin. The annual loss by burning is alone a 
terrible drain upon the resources of the people, to say 
nothing of the death and untold misery which stalk in 
the wake of a forest fire. 



BADGERS IN WAR TIME 

THE men of Wisconsin who had fought and con- 
quered the hard conditions of frontier life, devel- 
oping a raw wilderness into a wealthy and progressive 
commonwealth, were of the sort to make the best of 
soldiers when called upon to take up arms in behalf of 
the nation. 

From the earliest days of the War of Secession until 
its close, Wisconsin troops were ever upon the firing 
line, and participated in some of the noblest victories 
of the long and painful struggle. General Sherman, in 
his " Memoirs," paid them this rare tribute : ''We esti- 
mated a Wisconsin regiment equal to an ordinary bri- 
gade." It is impracticable in one brief chapter to do 
more than mention a few of the most brilliant achieve- 
ments of the Badger troops. 

In April, 1862, the Fourteenth, Sixteenth, and Eigh- 
teenth Wisconsin infantry regiments, although new in 
the service, won imperishable laurels upon the bloody 
field of Shiloh. The men of the Fourteenth were espe- 
cially prominent in the fray. Arriving on the ground 
at midnight of the first day, they passed the rest of the 
night in a pelting rain, standing ankle-deep in mud ; 
and throughout all the next day fought as though they 
were hardened veterans. 

236 



237 

A Kentucky regiment was ordered to charge a Con- 
federate battery, but fell back in confusion ; whereupon 
General Grant asked if the Fourteenth Wisconsin could 
do the work. Its colonel cried, "We will try!" and 
then followed one of the most gallant charges of the 
entire war. Thrice driven back, the Wisconsin men 
finally captured the battery ; confusion ensued in the 
Confederate ranks, and very soon the battle of Shiloh 
was a Union victory. 

In the Peninsular campaign of the same year, the 
Fifth Regiment made a bayonet charge which routed 
and scattered the Confederates, and turned the scales 
in favor of the North. In an address to the regiment 
two days later. General McClellan declared : " Through 
you we won the day, and Williamsburg shall be inscribed 
on your banner. Your country owes you its grateful 
thanks." His report to the War Department describes 
this charge as "brilhant in the extreme." 

Some of the highest honors of the war were awarded 
to the gallant Iron Brigade, composed of the Second, 
Sixth, and Seventh Wisconsin, the Nineteenth Indiana, 
and the Twenty-fourth Michigan. At Gainesville, in 
the Shenandoah Valley campaign, also in 1862, this 
brigade practically won the fight, the brunt of the Con- 
federate assault being met by the Second Wisconsin, 
which that day lost sixty per cent of its rank and file ; 
the brigade itself suffered a loss of nine hundred men. 

The Third opened the battle at Cedar Mountain, 
and very soon after that was at Antietam, where it 
lost two-thirds of the men it took into action. The 
Fifth also was prominent near by, and the Iron Brig- 



238 

ade, behind a rail fence, conducted a fight which was 
one of the chief events of the engagement. 

At the battle of Corinth, several Wisconsin regiments 
and four of her batteries won some of the brightest 
honors. In the various official reports of the action, 
such comments as the following are frequent : " This 
regiment (the Fourteenth) was the one to rely upon in 
every emergency;" a fearless dash by the Seventeenth 
regiment, one general described as *' the most glorious 
charge of the campaign " ; there was an allusion to 
the Eighteenth's " most effectual service " ; in refer- 
ring to the Sixth battery, mention is made in the reports, 
of "its noble work." 

At ChapHn Hills, in Kentucky, a few days later, the 
First Wisconsin drove back the enemy several times, 
and captured a stand of Confederate colors. The Tenth 
was seven hours under fire, and lost fifty-four per cent 
of its number. General Rousseau highly praised both 
regiments, saying, *' These brave men are entitled to 
the gratitude of the country." The Fifteenth captured 
heavy stores of ammunition and many prisoners ; the 
Twenty-fifth repulsed, with withering fire, a superior 
force of the enemy, who had suddenly assaulted them 
while lying in a cornfield ; and the Fifth battery three 
times turned back a Confederate charge, "saving the 
division," as General McCook reported, " from a dis- 
graceful defeat." 

At Prairie Grove, in Arkansas, at Fredericksburg, 
and at Stone River, still later in the campaign of 1862, 
Wisconsin soldiers exhibited what General Sherman 
described as " splendid conduct, bravery, and efficiency." 



239 

Men of Wisconsin were also prominent in the Army 
of the Potomac, during the famous *'mud campaign" of 
the early months of 1863. At the crossing of the Rappa- 
hannock, theirs was the dangerous duty to protect the 
makers of the pontoon bridges. In the course of this 
service, the Iron Brigade made a splendid dash across 
the river, charged up the opposite heights, and at the 
point of the bayonet routed the Confederates who were 
intrenched in rifle pits. 

At Chancellorsville, the Third Wisconsin, detailed to 
act as a barrier to the advance of the Confederates 
under Stonewall Jackson, was the last to leave the ill- 
fated field. 

At Fredericksburg, not far away, the Fifth Wisconsin 
and the Sixth Maine led a desperate charge up Marye's 
Hill, where, in a sunken roadway, lay a large force of 
the enemy ; this force, a few months before, had killed 
six thousand Union men who were vainly attempting to 
rout them. This second and final charge overcame all 
difficulties, and succeeded. As the Confederate com- 
mander handed to the colonel of the Wisconsin regi- 
ment his sword and silver spurs, he told the victor that 
he had supposed there were not enough troops in the 
Army of the Potomac to carry the position ; it was, he 
declared, the most daring assault he had ever seen. 
Such, too, was the judgment of Greeley, who declared 
that '* Braver men never smiled on death than those 
who climbed Marye's Hill on that fatal day." The 
correspondent of the London Times also wrote, " Never 
at Fontenoy, Albuera, nor at Waterloo was more 
undaunted courage displayed." 



240 

In the campaign which resulted in the fall of Vicks- 
burg, in 1863, numerous Wisconsin regiments partici- 
pated, many of them with conspicuous gallantry. It 
was an officer of the Twenty-third who received, at the 
base of the works, the offer of the Confederates to 
surrender. 

The part taken by Wisconsin troops at Gettysburg, 
was conspicuous. The Iron Brigade and a Wisconsin 
company of sharpshooters were, day by day, in the 
thickest of the fight, and gained a splendid record. At 
Chickamauga, several of our regiments fought under 
General Thomas, and lost heavily. They afterward 
participated in the struggle at Mission Ridge, which 
resulted in the Confederate army under Bragg being 
turned back into Central Georgia. 

The Iron Brigade was in Grant's campaign against 
Richmond, serving gallantly in the battles of the Wil- 
derness, in the '* bloody angle " at Spottsylvania, at Fair 
Oaks, and in the numerous attacks before Petersburg. 

Wisconsin contributed heavily to the army of Sher- 
man, in his "march to the sea," and in the preliminary 
contests won distinction on many a bitterly contested 
field. Several of our regiments were in the assault on 
Mobile, the day when Lee was surrendering to Grant, 
in far-off Virginia. Others of the Badger troops, in- 
fantry and cavalry, served in Louisiana, Texas, and 
Arkansas, fighting the Confederate guerillas, while 
our artillerymen were distributed throughout the sev- 
eral Union armies, and served gallantly until the last 
days of the war. 

Wisconsin soldiers languished in most of the great 



241 

Southern military prisons. A thrilling escape of Union 
men from Libby Prison, at Richmond, was made in Feb- 
ruary, 1864, by means of a secret tunnel. This was 
ingeniously excavated under the superintendence of a 
party of which Colonel H. C. Hobart of the Twenty- 
first Wisconsin was a leader. 

Another notable event of the war, of which a Wis- 
consin man was the hero, occurred durins^ the nio-ht of 




the 27th of October, 1864. The Confederate armored 
ram Albemarle, after having sunk several Union vessels, 
was anchored off Plymouth, North Carolina, a town 
which was being attacked by Federal troops and ships. 
Lieutenant W. B. Cushing of Delafield, Waukesha 
county, proceeded to the Albemarle in a small launch, 
under cover of the dark ; and, in the midst of a sharp 
fire from the crew of the ram, placed a torpedo under 
her bow and blew her up. The daring young officer 

STO, OF BADGER STA. — I 6 



242 

escaped to his ship, amid appalling difficulties, having 
won worldwide renown by his splendid feat. 

The saving of the Union fleet in the Red River was 
an incident which attracted national attention to still 
another Wisconsin man. The expedition up the river, 
into the heart of the enemy's country, was a failure, and 
immediate retreat inevitable. But the water had low- 
ered, and the fleet of gunboats found it impossible to 
descend the rapids at Alexandria. The enemy were 
swarming upon the banks, and the situation was so 
hazardous that it seemed as if the army would find it 
necessary to desert the vessels. Lieutenant Colonel 
Joseph Bailey of the Fourth Wisconsin infantry, serv- 
ing as chief engineer on General Franklin's staff, pro- 
posed to dam the river, then suddenly make an opening, 
and allow the boats to emerge with the outrush of im- 
prisoned water. The plan is a familiar one to Wiscon- 
sin lumbermen, in getting logs over shoals ; but it was 
new to the other officers, and Bailey was laughed at as 
a visionary. However, the situation was so desperate 
that he was allowed to try his experiment. It succeeded 
admirably ; the fleet, worth nearly two milHons of dol- 
lars, was saved, and the expedition emerged from the 
trap in good order. Bailey was made a brigadier gen- 
eral, and the grateful naval officers presented him with 
a valuable sword and vase. 

No account of Wisconsin's part in the War of Seces- 
sion should, however brief, omit reference to a conspic- 
uous participant, ''Old Abe," the war eagle of the 
Eighth Regiment. He was captured by an Indian, on the 
Flambeau River, a branch of the Chippewa, and until 



243 

the close of the long struggle was carried on a perch by 
his owners, the men of Company C. He was an eye- 
witness of thirty-six battles and skirmishes, and accom- 
panied his regiment upon some of the longest marches 
of the war. Frequently he was hit by the enemy's bul- 
lets, but never was daunted, his habit in times of action 
being to pose upon his perch or a cannon, screaming 
lustily, and frequently holding in his bill the corner of a 
flag. No general in the great struggle achieved a wider 
celebrity than *' Old Abe." Until his death, in 1881, he 
was exhibited in all parts of the country, at State and 
national soldiers' reunions, and at fairs held for their 
benefit. At the great Sanitary Fair in Chicago, in 1865, 
it is said that the sales of his photographs brought 
$16,000 to the soldiers' relief fund. 

Upon the opening of the Spanish-American War, in 
April, 1898, Wisconsin's militia system was one of the 
best in the country, and its quota of 5390 volunteers 
was made up from these companies. 

The First Regiment was sent to Camp Cuba Libre, at 
Jacksonville, Florida; the Second and Third to Camp 
Thomas, at Chickamauga; and the Fourth, at first to 
the State military camp at Camp Douglas, and later to 
Camp Shipp, Alabama. The First was the earliest 
raised, and the best equipped, but its colonel's commis- 
sion was not so old as those held by the other regimen- 
tal commanders from this State ; therefore, when two 
Wisconsin regiments were to be sent in July to Puerto 
Rico, the Second and Third were selected, leaving the 
First reluctantly to spend its entire time in camp. After 
the war, it had been intended to detail the Fourth, 



244 

not mustered in until late in the struggle, to join the 
American army of occupation in the West Indies; but, 
owing to the fact that a large percentage of the men 
were suffering from camp diseases, they were finally 
mustered out without leaving the country. 

The Second and Third had an interesting experience 
in Puerto Rico. Arriving at the port of Guamico upon 
the 25th of July, they took a prominent part in the 
bloodless capture of the neighboring city of Ponce. 
This task completed, they were detailed, with the Six- 
teenth Pennsylvania, to form the advance guard of the 
army, which prepared at once to sweep the island from 
south to north. Our men were almost daily under fire, 
particularly in road clearing skirmishes under General 
Roy Stone. 

Two days after the landing at Guamico, Lieutenant 
Perry Cochrane, of Eau Claire, an officer of the Third, 
was sent forward with seventeen other Eau Claire men, 
to open up the railway line leading to the little village 
of Yauco, lying about twenty miles westward of Ponce, 
and to capture that place. The track and the bridges 
had been wrecked by the fleeing enemy, so that 
Cochrane's party endured much peril and fatigue be- 
fore they reached their destination ; and Yauco was not 
disposed to succumb to this handful of men. Cochrane 
successfully held his own, however, until the following 
day, when reenforcements arrived. 

A few days after the fall of Ponce, the Sheboygan 
company was acting as guard to a detachment repairing 
the San Juan road, several miles out of town. Hearing 
that a party of Spanish soldiers had taken a stand at 



245 

Lares, eighteen miles away, a detail was sent with a flag 
of truce, to treat with them. The squad consisted of 
Lieutenant Bodemer, four privates, and a bugler. The 
Spaniards were not in a pleasant frame of mind, and 
but for their officers would have made short shrift of 
the visitors, despite the peaceful flag which they bore. 
Finally, the Spaniards agreed to receive a deputation of 
native Puerto Ricans, and talk the matter over with 
them. Our men withdrew, and sent natives in their 
stead ; but the latter were treacherously assaulted, and 
only one of them escaped to tell the story. 

Upon the 9th of August, there was a sharp fight at 
Coamo. Both of our regiments were actively employed 
in this encounter, and were of the troops which finally 
raised the American flag over the town walls. 

The final engagement was fought two days later, at 
the mountain pass of Asomanta, near Aibonito, where 
2500 Spanish troops were centered. The Second Wis- 
consin was the last American regiment in this fight, and 
lost two killed and three wounded. These were Wis- 
consin's only field losses during the war, although her 
deaths from camp diseases were about seventy. 



INDEX 



Albanel, Father Charles, 57. 

Albion, 227. 

Algonkin tribes, 16, 24. 

AUouez, Father Claude, 45, 55-57, 147, 149. 

American Fur Company, 85, 86, 90. 

Andre, Father Louis, 57. 

x\postle Islands, 40. 

Appleton, 36, 86. 

Ashland, 40, 146. 

Astor, John Jacob, 85. 

Atkinson, General Henry, 131, 139-141. 

Aztalan, 7, 8. 

Bad Ax River, 130, 142, 143, 212, 

Badger State, origin of term, 161. 

Bailey, Colonel Joseph, 242, 243. 

Baraga, Father Frederick, 153, 

Barron County, 235. 

Barronett, 235. 

Barstow, Colonel William A., 216-221. 

Bashford, Governor Coles, 216-221. 

Bayfield, 154. 

Beaubassin, Hertel de, French commandant, 150. 

Beaver Island, 193, 194. 

Belgians in Wisconsin, 228, 229. 

Belleview, 158. 

Belmont, 157, 158. 

Berlin, 15, 37. 

Bill Cross Rapids, 55. 

Black Hawk, Sac chief, 212. 

Black Hawk War, 86, 134-145. 

Black River, 15, 53-55, 62. 

247 



248 

Bohemians in Wisconsin, 222, 229. . 
Bois Brule River, 67, 71, 90, 148. 
Booth, Sherman M., 205-208. 
Brisbois, Michel, 113. 
Brothertown Indians, 15, 198, 200. 
Brown County, 228, 233. 
Buffalo County, 225. 
Bulger, Captain Alfred, 116. 
Burlington, 190. 

Butte des Morts, Grand, 91, 131, 213. 
Butte des Morts, Little, 76, 211. 

Cadotte, Jean Baptiste, 152. 

Cadotte, Michel, 152. 

Calve, Joseph, 104. 

Cass, Governor Lewis, 211. 

Cassville, 158. 

Ceresco Phalanx, 183-189. 

Cha-kau-cho-ka-ma (Old King), 209, 21 1. 

Champlain, Samuel de, 24, 25, 27, 28, ^^, 51. 

Chardon, Father Jean B., 57. 

Chase, Warren, 184. 

Chelsea, 55. 

Chequamegon Bay, 40, 55, 56, 67, 84, 87, 88, 146-154. 

Chippewa Indians, 14, 15, 18, 57, 78, 127, 149, 150, 152, 153. 

Chippewa River, 40, 243. 

Clark, General George Rogers, 97-104, iii. 

Clark, General W' iiliam, in. 

Cochrane, Lieutenant Perry, 244, 245. 

Copper mines, 21. 

Copper River, 55. 

Cornish in Wisconsin, 229. 

Crawford County, 171. 

Gushing, Lieutenant W. B., 241, 242. 

Dakotan tribes, 16. 

Dane County, 225, 227, 228. 

Davis, Jefferson, 140. 

Delafield, 242. 

De Louvigny, French captain, 75, 76. 

De Pere, 36, 45, 49, 50, 56-58, 86, 88. 

Dewey, Governor Nelson, 161, 203, 216. 



249 

Dickson, Robert, 112, 113. 

Dodge, Major Henry, 142, 160, 214. 

Door County, 35, 45, 228, 233. 

Doty, Governor James D., 157, 159, 166. 

Doty's Island, 36. 

Dubuque, Julien, 120, 121. 

Ducharme, Jean Marie, 104. 

Duck Creek, 200. 

Duluth, Daniel Graysolun, 34, 66, 67, 147-149, 

Dutch in Wisconsin, 222, 229. 

Eau Claire, 244. 

Eau Claire County, 90. 

Eau Claire River, 90. 

Eau Pleine River, 90. 

Embarrass River, 90. 

English in Wisconsin, 92-98, 104-106, 110-116, 118. 

Enjalran, Father Jean, 57, 58. 

Equaysayway, Chippewa maid, 152. 

Flambeau River, 243. 

Fond du Lac, 158, 182. 

Fond du Lac County, 90, 184, 225. 

Fort Crawford, 128, 133. 

Fort Edward Augustus, 93. 

Fort Howard, 131, 133. 

Fort McKay, 115, 116. 

Fort Perrot, 63. 

Fort St. Antoine, 63. 

Fort St. Francis, 93. 

Fort St. Nicholas, 63. 

Fort Shelby, 11 2-1 16. 

Port Snelling, 128, 1 30-132. 

F'ort Winnebago, 133. 

Fox Indians (Outagamies), 15, 57, 64, 69, 71-80, 134. 

Fox River, 14, 15, 30, 32, 36-38, 45, 56, 58-61, 64, 67, 68, 71, 72, 76, 79, 

III, 113, 114, 122-124, I3i> ^33> 148, 180, 182, 199, 200, 212, 213, 225. 
French in Wisconsin, 15, 24-91, 97, 98, 104-110, 117-122, 127, 155, 222. 

See, also. Fur Trade. 
Frontenac, Governor of New France, 28, 43, 44. 
Fur Trade in Wisconsin, 22-25, ^7, 28, 32-41, 43, 44, 49, 51, 53, 59-93, 

97, 98, 104, 105, 109-113, 117, 118, 120, 127, 146, 149, 152, 171. 



2 so 

Gagnier, Registre, 129, 130. 

Galena, Illinois, 63, 68, 122, 124, 172. 

Galena River, 121. 

Gautier, Charles, 100, loi, 103. 

Germans in Wisconsin, 222, 224, 225. 

Glode, Indian chief, 209. 

Glover, Joshua, 204-208. 

Gorrell, Lieutenant James, 93-96, 105. 

Grand Portage, 84. 

Green Bay, 14, 15, 29, 30, 35, 36, 3S, 45, 58, 61, 65, 68, 70, 77-79, 84, 

85, 88-91,93-96,98, 104-106, 112, 113, 123, 124, 131, 158, 166, 171, 

173, 178, 182, 187, 199, 212, 213, 228, 232, 234. 
Green County, 225-227. 
Grignon, Robert, 213. 
Grizzly Bear, Indian chief, 209. 
GroseiUiers, Medard Chouart des, 34-41, 53, 55, 59, 60, 146, 

Hall, Rev. Sherman, 153. 

Harrison, Governor William H., 106. 

Helena, 124. 

Hennepin, Father Louis, 66, 67. 

Henry, General James D., 142. 

Hesse, English captain, 104. 

Hobart, Colonel H. C, 241. 

Hudson Bay Company, 41, 60, 84. 

Huron Indians, 15, 28-30, 39-41, 53, 54, 74, 151. 

Icelanders in Wisconsin, 229. 

Illinois Indians, 15, 32, 74-76. 

Indians, as mound builders, 7-14, 19; life and manners of, 14-23; pot- 
tery, 21; copper and stone implements, 21, 22. See, also, the several 
Tribes. 

lometah, Indian chief, 209. 

Iowa County, 121. 

Irish in Wisconsin, 222. 

Iron Brigade, 237-240. 

Iroquois Indians, 24, 27, 38, 39, 45, 53, 63, 72. 

Janesville, 182. 

Jesuit Missionaries in Wisconsin, 25, 26, 29, 31, 32, 35, 42-59, 62, 66, 87, 

88. 
Johnson, Colonel James, 121. 



251 

Johnson, John, 152. 

Joliet, Louis, 37, 38, 42-50, 60, 65, 118. 

Joseph, fur-trade clerk, 15 1. 

Kaukauna, 36, 86, 91. 
Kenosha, 184. 
Keokuk, Sac chief, 145. 
Keshena, 212, 215. 
Kewaunee County, 228, 233. 
Kiala, Fox chief, 79. 
Kickapoo Indians, 15, 16, 46, 74. 
Kickapoo River, 15. 
Koshkonong, 158. 

La Crosse, 86, 88, 91. 

La Crosse County, 90. 

Lafayette County, 157. 

Lake Chetek, 88. 

Lake Court Oreilles, 88, 90, 153. 

Lake Flambeau, 88, 90, 153. 

Lake Koshkonong, 46. 

Lake Michigan, 15, 27, 29, 32, 35, 49, 57, 60, 65-67, 69, 93, 94, 104, 123, 

157, 158, 162, 164, 171, 179, 182, 193, 198. 
Lake Pepin, 62, 63, 78, 90. 
Lake St. Croix (Upper), 67. 
Lake Sandy, 88. 
Lake Shawano, 56, 57. 
Lake Superior, 27, 29, 38-41, 53-56, 59, 60, 65, 66, 71, 104, 146, 148, 

150, 151, 154. 
Lake Vieux Desert, 54, 55, 90, 167. 
Lake Winnebago, 37, 112, 113, 181, 200, 212, 225. 
Langlade, Charles de, loo, loi, 103. 
Langlade County, 90. 
La Pointe, 55, 56, 147-150, 152-154. 
La Ronde, fur trader, 150. 
La Salle, Chevalier de, 28, 34, 43, 64-66, 69. 
Lead Mining in Wisconsin, 63, 68, 117-124. 
Le Sueur, Pierre, 67, 68, 119, 148, 149. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 139. 
Linctot, Godefroy, 103, 104. 
Lipcap, killed by Indians, 129, 1 30. 
Little Chute, 199. 



252 

Little Kaukauna, 196, 200. 
Little Suamico, 233. 
Long, John, 105, 106. 

McArthur, Lieutenant Governor Arthur, 219, 220. 

McKay, Major William, 113, 114. 

Mackinac, 29, 35, 44, 45, 56, 61, 67, 70, 78, 83, 84, 93, 94, 98,99, 104, 105, 

111-114, 120, 147, 199, 209, 210. 
Madelaine Island, 148-150. 

Madison, 123, 158, 160, 165, 172, 175, 182, 217, 220. 
Manitowoc County, 233. 
Marin, French captain, 72, 73. 

Marquette, Father Jacques, 37, 38,42-50, 56, 60, 118, 147, 149, 153. 
Marquette County, 90. 
Mascoutin Indians (Fire Nation), 15, 37, 38, 45-47, 57, 60, 63, 64, 74, 

78. 
Mason, destroyed by fire, 235. 
Massachusetts Indians in Wisconsin, 15. 
Menard, Father Rene, 52-55, 59, 146. 
Menasha, 36. 

Menominee Indians, 15,46, 59, 74, 78, 94-96, 199, 209-214. 
Menominee River, 30, 167, 168. 
Merrill, 55. 

Methode, killed by Indians, 128, 133. 
Miami Indians, 15, 46, 47, 60, 64. 
Miller, A. G., 206. 
Milwaukee, 66, 69, 86, 88, 106, 122, 123, 158, 172, 179, 180, 182, 204, 21 j, 

222, 225, 228. 
Mineral Point, 122, 158, 225. 
Mississippi River, 14, 32, 37, 42-50, 57, 62, 63, 65-70, 72, 73, 76-78, 87, 

93, 104, III, 112, 119, 120, 123, 124, 127, 128, 138, 139, 142, 143, 148, 

149, 156, 158, 162, 164, 168, 169, 179, 180, 182, 190, 225. 
Mohawk Indians, 197, 198. 
Montreal River, 167. 
Mormons in Wisconsin, 190-195. 
Morse, Dr. Jedediah, 199. 
Munsee Indians, 15, 198, 200. 

Nahkom, Indian woman, 213, 214. 
Neapope, Sac leader, 139. 
Neenah, 36, 73, 76, 86, 211, 213, 
New Franken, 233. 



253 

New Glarus, 225, 227. 

New York Indians in Wisconsin, 15. 

Nicolet, Jean, 26-33, 3^, 31, Ah 45» 59» n?- 

Northwest Company, 84. 

Nouvel, Father Henri, 57. 

Oconto, 233. 
Oconto County, 233. 
Odanah, 153. 

Ogemaunee, Menominee chief, 94-96. 
" Old Abe," Wisconsin war eagle, 243 
Oneida Indians, 15, 196, 198, 200, 
Oshkosh (city), 37, 86, 213. 
Oshkosh, Indian chief, 209-215 
Ottawa Indians, 15, 39, 53, 60, 74, 78. 

Partridge, Alvin, 213, 214. 

Pensaukee, 233. 

Perkins, Lieutenant Joseph, 1 1 2, 114. 

Perrot, Nicolas, 34, 57-64, 66, 72, 

Peshtigo, 233. 

Phillips, 235. 

Platteville, 158. 

Point Bass, 209. 

Poles in Wisconsin, 222, 229. 

Pontiac's War, 94, 97. 

Portage, 37, 47, 48, 86, 90, 91, 103, 106, 113, 122, 131, 133, 158, 178, 

180. 
Portage County, 90. 
Potosi, 68. 

Pottawattomie Indians, 15, 36, 59, 64, 74, 138, 141. 
Prairie du Chien, 14, 37, 48, 63, 70, 86, 88, 89, 91, 98, 103-105, 110-116, 

123, 124, 127-133, 142, 144, 172, 178, 179. 
Prairie du Sac, 142. 

Racine, 91, 158. 

Racine County, 90, 190. 

Radisson, Pierre-Esprit, 34-41, 45, 53, 55, 59, 60, 146, 147, 149. 

Reaume, Charles, 105-109. 

Red Bird, W^innebago chief, 128-133. 

Roads in Wisconsin, 177-182. 

Rock River, 123, 134, 138, 141, 145, 182. 



2S4 

Rolette, Joseph, 113. 
Russians in Wisconsin, 222. 

Sac Indians, 15, 73, 74, 78-80, 134-145, 212. 

St. Cosme, F'ather Jean P'rancois Buisson, 68, 69. 

St. Croix County, 90. 

St. Croix River, 67, 68, 71, 90, 148, 169, 170. 

St. Francis Xavier mission. See De Pere. 

St. James, Jesuit mission, 57. 

St. Louis River, 148. 

St. Mark, Jesuit mission, 56, 57 

Sauk County, 225. 

Sault Ste. Marie, 43, 60, 61, 63. 

Scandinavians in Wisconsin, 222, 227, 228. 

Scotch in Wisconsin, 222. 

Shawano County, 233. 

Sheboygan, 69, 86, 228. 

Shell Lake, 235. 

ShuU, James W., 121. 

ShuUsburg, 121. 

Silvy, Father Antoine, 57. 

Sinclair, Captain Patrick, 104. 

Sioux Indians, 14, 16, 18, 40, 56, 62, 66, 67, 78, 127-130, 144, 147. 

Slavery in Wisconsin, 202-208. 

Souligny, Indian chief, 209, 210, 214. 

Spaniards in lead mines, 120, 121. 

Spanish-American War, Wisconsin in, 243-245. 

Stockbridge Indians, 15, 198, 200. 

Strang, James Jesse, 190-195. 

Sturgeon Bay, 86, 233. 

Sturgeon Bay (vv^ater), Indians on, 14. 

Sugar Bush, 233. 

Superior, 235. 

Swiss in Wisconsin, 225-227. 

Taylor, Zachary, 139. 
Taylor County, 225. 
Tecumseh, 135, 209, 210. 
Tomah, 209, 210. 
Trempealeau, 62, 63, 169. 
Trempealeau County, 7, 90, 91 
Vanderventer's Creek, 147. 



255 

Voree, 191-193, 195. 

Wabashaw, Sioux chief, 144. 

Walworth County, 192. 

War of Secession, Wisconsin in, 236-245. 

Warren, Lyman Marcus, 152, 153. 

Warren, Truman, 152, 153. 

Washington Island, 229. 

Waukesha, 182. 

Waukesha County, 216, 242. 

Wekau, Winnebago avenger, 129-133. 

W^elsh in Wisconsin, 222, 229. 

Whistler, Major William, 131, 132. 

White Cloud, Sac leader, 138, 139. 

White Crane, Chippewa chief, 152. 

White River, 192, 195. 

Whittlesey's Creek, 146. 

Williams, Eleazer, 196-201. 

Winnebago County, 213. 

Winnebago Indians, 14-16, 18, 30-32, 78, 125-133, 138, 139, 141, 142, 
144, 199; as mound builders, 14. 

Winnebago Rapids, 73. 

Wisconsin City, 158. 

Wisconsin River, 14, 15, 32, 37, 48, 55, 61, 63, 67, 68, 71, 78, 79, 113, 114, 
122-124, 133, 141, 142, 148, 167, 180. 

Wisconsinapolis, 158. 

Wolf River, 15, 56. 

Yellow Banks, 138. 



TVPOGKAPHV BY J. S. CuSHlNG & Co., NORWOOD, MaSS., U.S.A. 



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16 1900 



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